The Innocent (12 page)

First, there were the king’s hands, holding hers, and she could see his face smiling down—but then he turned away and kissed the hand of a richly dressed blond woman, whose face she could not see, and slowly they both walked away from her. And then there was Piers, too, and Aveline, and the sound of a woman weeping. Heartbroken sobs, so deep and wrenching that they were wounds given sound…

Sadness and terror washed over her in a cold, lonely wave, so intense she found herself wailing with fear, and Deborah’s arms were around her in the cold cellar again. She choked on the words as she tried to explain what she’d seen—her sense of loss and anguish so great it hurt her throat to speak of them.

Deborah held her and stroked her hair gently and rhythmically, and after a time, Anne relaxed and the fear and pain receded as Deborah spoke quietly about what should be done.

“Think carefully about what you saw. There is sadness and trouble here and Aine has given you a warning. The king has turned away from you and that may be a blessing. Do not try to see again until we are together once more, but you can ask help from the goddess when you need strength, and you can pray to the Lady Mary as well. The two of them will give wisdom when you need it. But Anne, always make sure you have someone with you as you work around the house…” She saw the look of panic on Anne’s face, and said soothingly, “Sleep tonight. That is your greatest need. In the morning, if you need me, I am at the Green Tabor, down in the East Chepe, and I shall stay there for two more nights. Perhaps I can speak to your mistress for you about Mathew Cuttifer’s son, if you feel you cannot tell her about Piers—she is a good woman and clear-sighted.”

Anne nodded gratefully, suddenly tired beyond speech.

Yet now, something had changed—she felt strengthened. The power of Aine, Mary’s compassion, they would be both sword and breastplate in what was to come…

The rain had stopped when the pair doused the light of the lantern and pulled the door of the cellar closed behind them. After hugging Anne, Deborah hurried away into the darkness and Anne ran quickly back to the kitchen, knocking quietly to be let in. A very sleepy Melly pulled the door open just enough to let her friend slip through.

Aveline pretended to be asleep when she heard Anne burrow down under the coverings on her small pallet bed. She had been awake for the last two hours, waiting patiently for the dead heart of the night and the tolling of the midnight bell from the Abbey, when she would visit Piers as she had promised.

But the bell had long since tolled, and it was her presumption that Anne had been with Mathew’s son all this time—where else would she have been? And she’d lain there in the darkness becoming more and more furious.

Angry bile clogged her throat as she carefully rehearsed the speech she wanted to make to Piers, but she waited until Anne’s breathing was even, before sliding from her bed. Quickly stepping into her linen underskirt and chemise, and draping a fur coverlet around her shoulders, she slipped out of the solar and down the quiet, dark passage that led to Piers’s room. Surefooted and silent, she made her way to his quarters and saw a thread of light still slanting out from the gap under the door. Heart hammering with rage and anxiety, she paused for a moment as she forced herself to think. She must not alienate him now. If what she suspected was true—that he now preferred Anne—she would have to be very careful.

On the other side of the door, the fire in the room was burning low as Piers, on his father’s orders, sat calculating the costs of the king’s feast as penance for his clumsy behavior before the court. He was resentful, bored, and very tired. To his mind, he was treated worse than any of Mathew’s clerks, for they, at least, were permitted to sleep! The door to his room squeaked—it was opening! The feathery hairs on the back of his neck rose when he saw a small white hand slide down the edge of the door as it was pushed inward.

“Who’s there?” He was on his feet and in three long strides had flung the door open to reveal a kneeling woman, head bowed, hands clasped chastely in prayer before her chest. For a moment in the semidarkness, his eyes played tricks and he felt a flicker of disappointment: if Anne had come to him without compulsion, it took away some of the gloss. Then the woman raised her head. “Aveline!”

“Ah, my lord, do not be angry with me.” The girl stretched out full length upon the flags, abasing herself like a penitent, modestly hiding her face with her hands.

“Well, girl, get up, get up.” He pretended to be impatient, but then that was part of the game—a game they’d played many times before.

“Alas, lord, I fear that I cannot, for I am not decently dressed and merely wish to humbly confess my sins and beg for penance. Mortify my wicked sinful flesh, oh, my lord.”

Piers looked down at her body stretched out under the fur covering and his groin stirred. The house was quiet and there were at least six hours of the night left; he’d forgotten that Aveline had said, earlier in the day, that she’d visit him after the feast.

Very well. Brutally, he grasped her wrists and pulled her into the room, kicking the door closed. She whimpered but said nothing as he dragged her over to his hearth, and then she lay still, on her belly, as he let her hands go. With the toe of one boot he flicked the fur bedcovering aside, revealing the girl in her bodice and undershift.

“Is this how you would confess? Half-naked? Speak!”

“Alas, lord, what would you have me do? I am a terrible sinner and deserve no pity. Do with me as you would, for admonition of my sins is yours to give.”

How easily she twisted the words she’d learned in the confessional for his pleasure now. And how hard it had been to make her say them at first—he remembered that with a flicker of dark pleasure. How he’d enjoyed her fear of the Devil as he’d forced her to blaspheme while he raped her.

“Stand up!” His voice was harsh and thick with the memory of that first delicious time with Aveline.

Quickly, she stood with hands crossed over her breasts and downcast eyes, the picture of the distressed innocent she’d once been.

For a moment all she could hear was his breathing, then he tore her chemise so violently the linen fell in two pieces to the floor. She was wearing nothing now but an underskirt, made transparent by the fire behind it. Roughly, he ran both hands over her breasts and torso, excited by her sharp intake of breath.

Slipping one hand down her belly, his fingers slid between the fabric of the underskirt and her skin. She moaned slightly. “Silence! Penitents speak only when addressed.”

He yanked hard and the waistband tore—the girl was naked, a pool of fabric around her feet on the floor.

He pulled her over to his great chair. “Kneel.” His voice was hoarse. Obediently she sank to her knees as he tied her hands to the back of the chair with a strip of fabric he ripped from her skirt. “I am the Lord’s instrument. Confess!”

“Oh, my lord, I confess to the mortal sin of lust.” She whispered the words, so low he could hardly hear her.

He was standing behind her now, legs straddled, whip in hand. “Louder. Describe this sin to me.” He swung the whip above his head and brought it down across her naked back.

She gasped. “Ah, lord, you hurt me, but no less than I deserve.”

“Speak on for the good of your soul.” His voice was a thick whisper now.

She swung her head forward modestly, using her hair as a cloak for her breasts. She was panting slightly and her words were sighs: “Lord, in my mind I have seen you enter me as beasts do in the field.” Since she knew him so well, she lingered slightly on the word “enter,” letting her little red tongue slip out between her lips to lick them. These were the times when she had power over Piers, no matter what he did to her, and she’d been able to use that power to advantage—a purse of money from time to time, even two pretty dresses that she took care to hide from Lady Margaret. Of course, she’d hated what he’d done to her at first, but had very quickly understood that, since there was no escape from him in this house, she could make him do what she wanted when she allowed him to degrade her.

It was only her body he used—that was how she comforted herself—only her body, never her soul…

Now, saying nothing, he walked around her as she knelt naked on the floor. The thin stripes from the whip were deepening in color—she would be bruised tomorrow. He’d never gone so far as to mark her skin before; that thought was exciting for he’d tied her hands very securely and the chair was heavy; she’d not escape easily if he wished to experiment further. He smoothed out the tangled thongs of the whip as he paced.

“Woman, you know that you must mortify this corrupt and stinking flesh so that you sin no more. You will say the Paternoster on my command.” He was standing behind her again now and could see the dark opening between her slightly parted thighs as she hung her head in apparent distress. Slowly and pleasurably he unlaced his codpiece. “Say the words.”

“Our Father, which art in Heaven—Ah! Ah, sir, no!” He had allowed the thongs of the whip to flash up between her legs, finding her cleft.

“This is for your salvation. Now. Say it again.” For a moment she could not speak because she was on fire with the intense pain, but then she stumbled on. “Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name…”

As she repeated the words he forced her to stand, pushed her thighs apart, and rammed himself into her from behind, pulling her hips back and back until he ground her arse into his belly. The tearing pain of the cuts from the whip intensified her agony but he knew her well, for now she gasped with involuntary pleasure. Then both hands were on her breasts, massaging, tweaking her nipples, as he breathed hot into her ear: “You must be cleansed. Speak the words.”

“Thy Kingdom come…Thy will be done…”

He was thrusting and grunting. “Yes, indeed, my will be done.”

“In Heaven as it is on Earth.”

Now he ripped her hands free and turned her around, pushing her backward into the huge chair. For a moment he looked at her naked body before he thrust back between her thighs with a groan. “Describe the pain of your penance.”

“Ah, sir, you are tearing me apart in just retribution for my sinful thoughts.” Against her will, she really was enjoying what he was doing now, and as he pushed her back and back with each thrust, she allowed herself to become limp, jerking back and forth as if he had speared her.

He growled with pleasure as he bucked and thrust into her unresisting body. “You are in need of more chastisement than I thought. I believe you are so far gone in sin that penance has become a pleasure to you.” Again he pulled himself away; this time, grasping her by the hair, he wrenched her out of the chair and, forcing her back on her knees, picked up the whip. “Open your mouth. I must punish that which says such things.”

Obediently, she knelt before him and opened her mouth, into which he plunged himself. “Unless you earn remission right well, I shall cut you harder. Suck!” He felt enormous, spearing down her throat, and even though she did what he demanded she felt the whip on her back again, and then again.

Desperately, she slid her tongue and lips along the length of him, tasting herself, sliding back and forth and bobbing faster and faster as she felt the whip flick up and down her spine and buttocks.

The girl had a magnificent body, and the sight of her so busy with her lips and tongue as he lashed her was exquisite, but Piers could feel how close he was. “Enough. On your back.”

Whimpering, she fell backward and obediently parted her thighs a little so that he could just see the dark pink opening between them. To make the moment last, he breathed deeply and took his time as she waited for him. “Wider so that I may view the entrance to the Devil’s pit.”

She did what he asked and as she saw him looking at her, fully exposed now to his gaze, an involuntary rippling shiver of deep pleasure ran through her.

“What are you here for, slut?”

“I am here for my penance, lord.”

“And for my pleasure; is that not so?”

“Yes, lord,” she whispered. She closed her eyes, moving her hips involuntarily

“Say it louder.” He was stroking himself too as he looked down at her, writhing beneath him.

“I am here for your pleasure, lord.” She began to whimper, as, with a roar he plunged into her with such force that she screamed and they both came; she helplessly clenching and unclenching around him and he shouting with a pleasure so intense it was close to pain.

After a time, Aveline became conscious that she was cold, or rather, the part of her facing the fire was hot but the rest of her felt the chill stone where she lay on the floor. Piers was sitting back at his worktable watching her—she could see his eyes glitter in the light of the flames. He got up and dropped the fur-lined coverlet over her body. She chanced a smile, which he did not answer as he walked over to the hearth; she sat up, aware the dice were in her hand and ready to be thrown.

“Piers?”

He was looking into the flames, not concentrating on what she was saying.

“We sort well together, you and I,” she ventured.

“Well enough.”

His tone was so cool it made her swallow the words she so wanted to say to him. Despairing, she forced herself to face the truth—pragmatism and survival had made her mold herself into what he’d wanted, but now there was Anne, and it was clear Piers was pursuing her in exactly the same way he had herself. They were both just bed sport and so he would never willingly couple his life with hers just because she carried his child—for that was the news she had for him.

With bitterness she understood, at last, that in failing to resist the corruption between them, it had tainted her soul. Her growing enjoyment of what he did to her told her that she’d made a bargain with the Devil, and now he wanted payment for the innocent life that was growing like a rose in the darkness between them. But the life of this child was also her one hope of salvation. Was she strong enough to protect it and, thus, herself?

“I will say good night, sir.” It was an effort to keep her tone neutral. He remembered sufficient grace to brush her cheek with his lips as she slipped out of the door. Yawning mightily, he turned back to his fire and stretched with delicious exhaustion. Time to sleep. Damn the accounts; he would do them tomorrow, whatever his father said. And he would sleep well now. He laughed as he pulled off his clothes. Yes, he would sleep well this night.