Gwynn did not mistake Bretagne’s words in the least; Ursula’s face broke into a malicious smile. Meanwhile Bretagne’s words froze Gwynn in her place, unable to move, hardly able to breathe.
Ursula rose and called out several names, which in her confusion and fear, Gwynn did not catch. But a dozen women came bounding up from the lower tables and, with Ursula in the lead, converged on Gwynn.
Ursula was nearly as strong as the baron, for all her apparent plump softness. She plucked Gwynn out of the seat even as she had been pulled erect by Bretagne. The women enveloped her in a mob and hustled her off the dais toward an archway that led to a stair and the wedding-night horseplay began.
Now Gwynn had participated in a milder form of such antics herself. The bride was supposed to be carried off, stripped naked and put into bed to await her groom. In the version in which Gwynn had played a part, the eager bride was serenaded with songs from the married women about the joys of the wedding night, and from the unmarried virgins, with laments about the loss of freedom. She had been gently disrobed and anointed with scent, her hair unbound and combed out, and put into a warmed bed, while the bachelors and married men treated her groom to a similar experience. Then, once both were bundled into bed together, they were pelted with nosegays of sweet herbs and rue, then locked into the chamber to consummate the marriage. The next day the evidence of the bride’s virginity on the sheets was examined by both mothers and pronounced genuine, not that anyone had harbored any doubts.
Evidently the women of Clawcrag had a variant on those traditions in mind.
They rushed her up a darkened set of stairs, with Ursula hauling her on the right and another woman on the left, moving so fast that she stumbled over every other step, stubbing her toes painfully and barking her shins more than once. The songs they were singing were more akin to the obscene ditties that the men had been howling down in the Great Hall than the songs that Gwynn had expected; more than once she found herself flushing painfully at the graphic lyrics. They passed two torches and two landings before they finally paused at a third and one of the women in the front of the crowd flung open a door.
They all shoved her inside it and followed. The bedchamber that they crammed themselves into was as cold as ice but, nevertheless, they stripped her bare with such ruthlessness that a gown any less sturdy than her traveling robe would have surely been ripped. As it was, they snapped the laces that held it closed down the back in their callous haste to get her out of it. The gown they flung aside in a corner, followed it with the undergown and followed that with her hose and shoes. They actually tore the shift off her rather than pull it over her head, and left her standing on the hearth, on what felt like fur beneath her icy feet. They then attacked her hair. The careful braids that Robin had made were taken down and unbraided clumsily, more than once with a jerk at a knot they’d made themselves, making her eyes water with pain. No scents were offered, no lotions, no comforts of any sorts; she was shoved, stumbling, at the bed, then into it. It was like being enveloped in a shroud, so chill were the linens. Linens that were as coarse as canvas against her skin.
As she clutched the bedcovers to her chest and stared at her captors, who were now clustered around her, she did not see a single sympathetic gaze among them. There was no sign of Robin; Gwynn suspected she’d been taken off guard by the speed of Ursula and her cohorts. As the “ladies” stood around the bed, eyes sparkling maliciously, mouths working as they sang yet another obscene ditty, they were shoved aside by Bretagne himself.
“Out!” he roared. Cackling, they obeyed him. He slammed the door of the chamber shut behind the last of them himself and dropped a bar across it.
Then he turned and stared at her, fists on his hips, eyes still full of that cold appraisal.
“Well, wife!” he said, his voice full of nuances she could not read.
She swallowed and pulled the bedcovers a little closer. “Well, husband,” she whispered.
“Come out of there,” he said. “I want to see what I have gotten of this bargain.” He bent down, lit a rushlight at the coals of the fire, and threw a log upon the embers.
She would have been happy to disobey him, not just because of her own fear, but because the room was absolutely frigid. But she knew she dared do nothing of the sort.
So she eased carefully out from under the sheet that she had clutched and, shaking in every limb, walked to where he pointed, standing before him on that fur rug on the hearth.
At least at that point the fire blazed up suddenly, giving her a little warmth.
She would have liked to hide herself in her hair and her hands, but she sensed that would only make him impatient—and perhaps angry. He was full of drink and, in such a state, he could be dangerous.
So she stood with her eyes cast down, shivering, both hands limply at her sides. At least her back was protected from the icy drafts behind the curtain of her hair.
Bretagne held up the rushlight and peered at her, looking her up and down as if she were a horse or a cow at a fair—which was precisely how she felt.
“No tits to speak of,” he grumbled under his breath. “Thin as a reed. Fah. A milk-and-water bitch!” He prowled around her like a cat circling a mouse while she shut her eyes and waited for him to pounce. And waited. And waited.
After an eternity, she suddenly felt his hand seize her hair at the back of her neck, and her eyes flew open. Before she could think, once again his mouth jammed down atop hers, her lips grating painfully on his teeth as he first bit and sucked at them, then thrust his tongue inside her mouth. He tasted of that bitter, bitter ale, and she had to force herself not to gag, not to try to push him away, not to stiffen.
But try as she might, she could not force herself to put her arms around him.
It didn’t seem to matter to him, anyway, what she did, so long as she didn’t fight him.
He picked her up bodily and flung himself and her into the waiting bed. It was only then that she realized he was as naked as she, and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to keep from crying out and trying to curl into a ball.
One of his hands pawed and pinched at her breasts, making her gasp, not with pleasure but with pain. He seemed to enjoy that, and twisted her nipples cruelly as she whimpered in the back of her throat, the sound dying before it was born. Finally he tired of thrusting his tongue down her mouth and moved his attentions to her breasts, sucking and biting at the nipples while she writhed and gasped with the pain.
“Like that, do you?” he chuckled. And he bit down again, shoving his hand between her legs, parting them ruthlessly, spreading them so far apart she thought she was going to split in two.
He probed at her secret parts with his fingers and chuckled when she whimpered with the new pain. “At least you’re the virgin they said you were,” he growled, a horribly pleased tone to his voice. “Well, I’ll be making a proper woman of you! When I’m done, you’ll know what it is to have a real man!”
She knew what was going to happen next as he positioned himself between her spread legs and shoved both hands under her buttocks, holding her in such a way that she could not have escaped his grasp no matter how hard she tried, if she had dared to. She knew what was coming—but that didn’t make it any easier.
She squeezed her eyes closed, and lay very still as he fell on her like a wild beast.
The first two thrusts failed to penetrate; he paused a moment and did something, she didn’t know what, then she felt him fumbling at her again, felt something pushing—
And then he lunged a third time and she did scream with the pain of it, for she was certain he had split her wide.
He roared with laughter, then fell to sucking and biting her breasts again as he thrust and withdrew, over and over, while she shook and moaned in pain. Faster and faster came his lunges, and then, suddenly, he lifted his head and made a strange sound—
And collapsed atop her, snorting like a pig. “Ha,” he said thickly. “Ha. You’re mine now. My mark’s on you.”
He was so heavy she wanted to push him off, and was afraid to. He rolled over a little, just enough that she could breathe again, and she lay with dumb tears leaking from her eyes and running into her hair above her ears. It hurt so much—
Slowly the pain ebbed as she wept, silently, because she hadn’t died and, now that it was over, she wished that she had….
He said nothing more. At some point, as the fire burned low again, he rolled completely off her at last. She slid off the bed, moving slowly and painfully, and sought for a cloth, anything to wipe away the fluids and the blood that oozed down her leg. She finally used her own shift—the women had ruined it past mending. At least the old, worn cloth was soft; she cleaned herself as best she could. She knew what she should do—for of all things, she did not want to bear children to this beast in man’s shape!—but she also had no idea of where her chests were and without them, she could not make the vinegar rinse that would flush away his seed.
When she was as clean as she could make herself, she huddled beside the dying fire and combed through her hair as thoroughly as she could with her fingers, making it into a single loose braid, tying the end with a piece of the lacing from her gown.
By this time she was as cold as a block of ice and Bretagne had rolled over and cocooned himself in all of the blankets on the bed, snorting like his namesake boar.
Still moving painfully, she looked about the chamber in the dim light of the dying fire. There was not much here; it wasn’t very large, and seemed to hold only the enormous bed and a stool and a clothing chest. She didn’t dare open the chest, which probably only held more of his clothing anyway. There didn’t seem to be any other bed coverings, not even a spare blanket, and finally she decided that the rug on the hearth on which she had stood was the only thing left for her to use to cover herself. It appeared to be a full bearskin and though heavy, would make a more than adequate blanket.
The bed itself, though it made her flesh crawl to think of lying down beside him, was big enough that even Bretagne was swallowed up in it. She could lie down far enough away from him that they need not touch.
“You’d better get used to it,” she whispered to herself as she stood beside the bed, staring down at the man within it with loathing. “This is your fate, until one or the other of you dies.”
And it was, as she had said to Robin, no worse than other women had borne since the time of Mother Eve.
So she crawled onto the side of the bed furthest from him, rolled herself up in the bearskin that at least smelled of nothing worse than dirt and smoke, and her exhaustion was such that finally, as the fire burned down to coals again, she fell asleep.
It was to a less-than-friendly face that she woke the next morning, but at least the face wasn’t Bretagne’s.
Ursula shook her awake, as rough and rude as any of the baron’s men-at-arms, probably as hard as the woman could manage. As Gwynn blinked confusedly up at her, the woman grabbed an edge of the bearskin and pulled, jerking her toward the edge of the bed.
Gwynn saved herself from a tumble only narrowly, getting her feet under her just as she slipped over the edge, grabbing the bearskin and taking it with her. As soon as she was out of the bed, the woman yanked the bloodstained sheet away and flounced off with it without a single word to her. Her expression was both sour and surly, suggesting that whatever had happened to her this morning, it had not been to her liking.
As Gwynn stood on the cold stone floor, pulling the bearskin around her, Robin and a blank-faced but strongly built girl came through the same door that Ursula had just used, bearing the first of Gwynn’s chests between them.
Since Gwynn had packed them all herself, she knew what was in this one, and as they put it down on the floor and Robin turned to look at her with shock, she shook off her own numb malaise. “Bring the rest of my things, and quickly, please,” she ordered in as firm a voice as she could manage. Only now was her body starting to wake up and ache; she hoped that none of her hurts were visible. At least this chest contained her underthings, her medicines, her herbs.
The moment they were gone, shutting the door behind them, she fell on the chest and pulled out a soft rag, pennyroyal and a soothing salve from her herbs and medicines, and then a clean shift from her underthings, and thanked heaven that it was this chest that Robin had brought first. By the time Robin was back with the second chest, she was decently clothed in shift and loose undergown and had soothed her own hurts as best she could. She had attended to the hurts of her father’s folk often enough, the injuries from hunting, farming and fighting, to know that her own bruises weren’t serious—but it was the first time she had ever been hurt herself, and that put an entirely new perspective on the injuries that she had tended on others.
“They’re hanging the sheet over the battlements!” Robin said in a tone of utter disbelief and indignation.
Gwynn flushed and could find no words in her embarrassment. Oh, she knew that peasants made such displays, but never in her own experience had anyone of any rank done so.
Robin put her end of the chest down and looked at her closely. “Are you well?” she asked.
Gwynn bit her lip. “As well as may be,” she answered after a long pause. “He is a fair match for Anghus, but—”
“But?”
“He has offered me no real harm.” For probably, in his mind, what he had done to her last night was no more than his lawful right. Even though she had found livid bruises on her breasts and thighs, and his teeth had drawn blood in places. And, no doubt, most priests would tell her it was his lawful right, that she must submit to the wishes of her husband and lord, and counsel patience.
Well, she would be patient, but not because her spirit was going to submit.
“He has offered you no real harm. Yet,” Robin said darkly.
“Robin,” she replied in a tone of mild rebuke. Robin flushed, but set her chin stubbornly.
“They say that on the floor above this room is the solar used by the ladies of the keep, when there still were ladies here,” Robin said after a long silence. “Mayhap we should see to it today. I’ve already had the keys of the slut they miscalled the housekeeper. It was that red-haired wench, and the baron took them from her himself and charged me with giving them to you.”
Gwynn sucked on her bruised lower lip, more than a bit surprised at that. Well, so that was what had happened to Ursula to put her in a rage!
Then again, it was no great honor to be put in charge of a place that was clearly so poorly run.
“I suppose I must have them, then,” she replied.
Robin pulled a long face. “So you must, but it’s little enough use they’ll be. There’s no locks to the stores, and nothing worth having in them anyway. As to the household, so far as I can tell, keys or no keys, that creature Ursula calls the tune, and there’s an end to it.”
She nodded, unsurprised, and throttled down the urge to weep. “Then…well, do what you may with my hair. After that, see if there is aught fit to eat in what passes for a kitchen, then let us see the solar and what can be made of it. We’ll make a start there.”
Robin nodded, and when the last of the chests and packs had been brought to the bedroom, she sat Gwynn down on the stool and made short work of the tangles in her hair, impossible though that task might have seemed last night. There was a surprising amount of light coming through the slit windows, covered with oiled parchment in wooden frames to keep out the worst of the cold wind; enough for Robin to weave her clever braids.
When Gwynn’s hair was neatly braided up and the braids themselves bound with strips of cloth to keep them neat and clean, she left Gwynn to rummage through her clothing chest to find a fresh gown, for her travel gown was too filthy to consider donning again. At the least, it would need an airing out and a good beating to shake out the grime. She much doubted that this place had anything like a laundry; washing it would have to wait until spring.
She picked the warmest gown she owned, and a thick woolen mantle to go over it, heavy stockings for her feet. And only when she stood up, dressed in clothing that was serviceable, but hardly the sort of thing that a woman intent on winning a man would wear, did she realize that she had unconsciously made her decision, at least about Bretagne. She would not try to woo and win him. There was nothing in him to woo or win; his heart clearly had room for a single object of devotion—and that object was himself. This was not the clothing of a woman who intended to find the soft heart of a man; this was the gown of one who intended, at the least, to survive without yielding her soul.
Well enough; the die was cast. She would give her husband nothing; let him take what he would, she would squander no tears on him, and allow him no part of her soul. Bretagne was a man of war and violence. Such men did not have long lives. She would do what she needed to do to outlive him.
And one of those things was to be certain he did not fill her with children, for that seemed to be the method of choice for a man to rid himself of a wife he did not care for. In that, he would find himself outmatched. She was not her mother’s daughter for nothing. There were several things in her herbs and medicines that only she knew the use of, and she would begin as soon as Robin returned with something to break their fast.
Robin appeared with a…well, it could not be called a “tray” since it was more of a flat basket. But it held food and a flask and, much to her astonishment, Gwynn realized that she was famished.
There was bread, with the burned crusts sliced off, and a slab of raw bacon, a pannikin of salt and four eggs. The two of them knelt to mend the fire and actually get it burning brightly. “I stood over the idiots minding the kitchen fire and got them to boil these properly,” Robin growled, handing her a warm egg to peel and dip in salt as the bacon crisped on a clean twig she held over the fire. “And praise be to God! The well is spring-fed and they have not yet managed to befoul it.”
“Good.” There was a small copper kettle in her chest; while they both ate bread and bacon, she put water to boil and brewed herself a potion. It was as bitter as aloes, but she drank it down quickly. Robin eyed it, and her, and the maid’s lips thinned when Gwynn didn’t offer any to share.
“Like that, is it?” was all Robin said. Gwynn nodded; she needed to do no more. That potion, and her gown, told Robin all that needed to be told, without any need to exchange words.
Well, they had planned for this. They had laid many plans, and of all the ones they had made, this, at least, was not the most extreme.
Yet. It could come to that. They had only been here less than a day, after all. And if it came to that…well, she would need a place that was all her own that she could make private at need.
“The solar,” she said when both of them had finished eating. Obediently, Robin got to her feet and Gwynn followed, suppressing a groan for her bruised and aching body.
There was no point in letting Robin know everything; at least, not yet. Perhaps not ever.
“It hasn’t been used since the baron’s mother died,” Robin warned as they climbed the stone stair to the floor above—the very top of the tower. Thin sunlight came through the narrow arrow slits to weakly illuminate the stairs; unfortunately, so did a bitter wind, for these windows were not covered in parchment. Gwynn was glad of her mantle. “But then again, maybe that’s all to the good.”
The door was locked, but Robin took a key ring out of the pocket tied over her gown, and tried the largest in the lock and the door opened, creaking on rusty hinges. Robin pushed it all the way to, and the two of them stepped into the room.
The first thing that Gwynn noticed was that the slit windows had actual glass in them, rather than the oiled parchment of the bedroom. The second was that this room, though dusty enough to make both of them sneeze within moments of entering it, was clean. Or at least, cleaner than the rest of the keep.
The fireplace in this room was bigger than the one below and had a crane and a kettle, and an iron pot on the hearth. Evidently the baron’s mother had been used to having meals cooked up here. This was more than a room that had been used only by day, though—there was a narrow cupboard bed to one side, and a wardrobe and two chests, as well as the expected spinning wheel, embroidery frame and loom. Evidently the baron’s mother, or perhaps one or more of the mother’s ladies, had actually lived up here, at least for a time. It looked as if—
Gwynn investigated the cupboard bed and discovered that what had looked like a drawer beneath it actually held a mattress, as well. So it was a trundle bed; two could sleep here, if they chose.
The wardrobe was empty, but the chests held soft bed linens and blankets, mercifully clean and with sprigs of herbs tucked in every fold to chase the insects. All the linens were made to fit this narrow, cotlike bed and the one beneath it, not the huge edifice in the baron’s bedroom, so it was obvious why they hadn’t been requisitioned to serve down there.
“Hmm,” Robin said, looking significantly from Gwynn to that narrow bed and back again.
“There is every reason why you should make this bed up, Robin,” Gwynn said firmly, “and why we should move all my belongings up here. I will want my tiring-maid near me, of course, and there is not room enough in Bretagne’s chamber for my things. In any event, I will wish my things to be…safe.”
“True enough, milady,” Robin replied blandly. “Well, other than a good sweeping and warming and rushes to warm the floor, this place looks fit to your use. I shall find some help.”
So it was Gwynn that made up both of the beds with the linens and plenty of blankets—then went down for the lighter packs herself. She had all of the smaller packs safely in the solar and was beginning to put her things away out of sight when Robin reappeared with a girl and two boys in tow. The girl had a basket of kindling and a broom, which Gwynn took from her when it was evident after a few moments that she was utterly unfamiliar with its use; the boys were both laden with logs. When they had unburdened themselves, Robin ordered them both downstairs to bring up the heavier things; Gwynn laid the fire and went to sweeping out the chamber, sending the girl down for a brand to light the fire with, and for water. The work kept her reasonably warm and when the girl came back with a rushlight instead of a brand, she lit the fire and had the satisfaction of seeing the chimney draw cleanly.
By noontide, the chamber had all the appearance of being properly tenanted. Gwynn’s embroidery was on the frame, Robin had managed to find enough linen cord to string the loom and enough plain, undyed wool for a proper piece of cloth. Gwynn’s clothing was put away in the wardrobe, and there was a good layer of rushes on the floor. Granted they were old and dry, but at least they were clean. Robin had found a clean barrel that had once held wine; now it stood beneath one of the windows, filled with clean water. And there had been much grumbling on the part of the boys about hauling water up all those stairs.
Robin went down to the kitchens again to find food, and returned with more bread and two bowls of pottage. “They haven’t burned it yet,” she said darkly. “Though it was a near thing.”
The bread was stale; Gwynn dipped it in her pottage to soften it. She had to fight to keep despair from washing over her. “What are they saying, down below?” she asked. “About me, I mean.”
A light tap on the door frame startled her and she turned with a smothered gasp.
“I beg you forgive me, for I did not mean to eavesdrop, my lady,” Sir Atremus said apologetically. “But I believe I can tell you what you wish to know. If, indeed, you truly wish to hear it.”
“Sir Atremus,” she said slowly, “you are welcome. And I do, indeed, wish to hear what you know, for it appears that I am faced with a thankless task at best and a hopeless one at worst. Please, come in.”
By the time the pottage was gone, Gwynn had a much more accurate picture of the situation she had been catapulted into, and in some ways, it was far less grim than she had thought. The neglect and decline within the keep dated from the time that Bretagne’s father had died; something like six or seven years ago. Before that, his mother had properly controlled the household until her death, then the aged seneschal had at least kept things from lurching into the chaos it now lay in. But the moment that Bretagne inherited, he had installed the first of a series of mistresses in charge of the household and the rot had immediately set in.
“So,” Gwynn mused, resting her chin on her fist, “there are two sets of servants and underlings here—those that served under Bretagne’s parents, and the new ones his lemans brought in.”
“Or that Bretagne himself took on,” Sir Atremus said. “That would be most of the men-at-arms and the bachelor knights.”
“But not you?” Robin chirped.
Sir Atremus flushed. “Nay, maid, not I. But when the baron’s father was on his deathbed, he asked us, his loyal men, to swear fealty to his son, and so I have.”
Gwynn gave her a warning look; Robin was edging onto dangerous ground. A knight’s honor was a delicate thing and not to be questioned. “The point is,” she continued, “that I might be able to win the older servants to follow my orders.”
“And they, in turn, can command those beneath them, whether they are the Lady Ursula’s creatures or no,” Sir Atremus agreed. “In the kitchen, there is much speculation upon what sort of lady you are—the frail and frightened sort or one such as the late Lady Anne.”
She considered her options. “The kitchen, I think,” she said at last, and got to her feet, concealing her winces from both Robin and Sir Atremus. “If any progress can be made, that is where we must start. If we can deliver edible meals, the men will be won to me. One does not lead a man by his nose, but by his stomach.”
“Well said, my lady!” Sir Atremus applauded. “Now, if you will forgive me, I fear I have overstayed my welcome.”
“Never that,” she said warmly and, on impulse, took one of his hands in both of hers. He took the right one and bent to kiss the back of it, then turned and left. But she thought he was blushing, though his face was averted from her.
Well, so was she. Once again she felt herself growing warm as she flushed, and got annoyed at herself for it.
But there was work to be done, and little time to do it in if she was going to have any improvements in place by the evening meal.