A Place Beyond Courage (9 page)
Tentatively she approached the bed she was soon to share with John. Kneeling on the sheepskin rug at its side, she clasped her hands beneath her chin, looped her prayer beads through her fingers, and prayed, asking God for the strength to help her be a good wife and please her husband. She felt lightheaded and nauseous from the unaccustomed quantity of wine she had consumed . . . from anxiety too. She wondered if she should climb into bed and pull the sheets up to her chin. If everything in this room was in its place, would he expect her to be waiting for him there, in her place too?
She heard him bidding his men goodnight and it was too late to act. As he entered the room, he stared at her on her knees at the bedside. Although he said nothing, Aline felt as if she had done wrong and stood up in guilty haste. She could feel the soft sheepskin between her toes, the smooth warmth of the beads in her hands. Running them through her fingers for comfort, she swallowed and hoped she wasn’t going to disgrace herself by being sick.
He sighed as he removed his belt and laid it across one of the coffers. ‘I assume your mother has told you what to expect?’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Her voice emerged as a tight squeak. She dared not look at him because she knew she would dissolve in a puddle of terror.
‘And you were praying for the strength to see it through?’
‘I always pray at night, my lord. I . . . I was asking God’s help to make me a good wife.’ She stared at the sheepskin and fumbled ever more desperately with her beads.
‘Then let us hope God hears and answers you,’ he said after a pause, ‘but since we must shift for ourselves on the practical matters, I suggest you shed that chemise and get into bed - if you have finished your prayers.’
Now she did look up, her eyes widening in shock. ‘You ...you want me to take off my chemise?’
He nodded. ‘Easier now than tangling with it under the bedclothes.’ He removed his tunic and folded it neatly beside his belt.
‘My mother said that . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I thought . . .’
‘You thought what?’
Aline started to tremble. ‘I . . . I know my duty, my lord, I will not shirk it, but the priests say lust is one of the seven deadly sins . . . and . . . and I do not want to court that sin.’ She saw him grimace. ‘I have angered you . . .’ she whispered.
He made a gesture of negation and his voice softened. ‘I am not angry at you, but I can think of a few well-fed, lustful prelates I’d take pleasure in throttling. Forget them; forget your mother. I’ll not have them in this chamber with us tonight.’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Well then, the sin of lust aside, I have the right to see what kind of bargain I have made - as do you.’ He stripped his rings and placed them in the wall niche. ‘You should count yourself fortunate - Lady Marshal. If we had stayed at the castle, you would have been put to bed in front of a host of baying witnesses and I would have had to bed you with naught but a curtain between your modesty and their eyes and ears. Here at least we have privacy.’
Aline flinched at the images conjured by his words. She would have died if she had had to do that. She knew he was speaking the truth. The bawdy jests and rough-housing of some celebrants at the feast had terrified her to the point of tears. One of them had been blaspheming about a cock crowing thrice before dawn, and he hadn’t been talking about St Peter’s betrayal of Christ.
He was staring at her expectantly, but she was rooted to the spot. She couldn’t do as he wanted; she just couldn’t. Not in front of him like this.
John came over to her. With swift, gentle fingers, he unfastened the ties at her throat and pushed the chemise down off her shoulders. Mortified, Aline gasped and grabbed the falling garment, but John caught her hands and unfolded them from their grip on the linen. ‘No,’ he said, ‘let it fall.’
She closed her eyes, tears seeping from under her lashes. Quivering with fear and embarrassment, she felt the chemise puddle at her ankles. There was a long silence in which she imagined him staring at her. Did she please him? Is this what he wanted? Her own breathing was shaky with distress, but she could not hear his. Then she felt his open palm against the side of her face, warm and steady. His thumb brushing her tears.
‘Is it really that terrible?’ he asked.
She said nothing because answering was beyond her. His voice gentled and he removed his hand. ‘Go, get into bed.’
She scrambled to do as he said and pulled the covers up to her chin. He looked at her inscrutably, then, heaving a sigh, unlaced his own shirt and pulled it over his head. Aline pressed her lips together and turned to study the plaster frieze painted on the wall beside the bed as if it were the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
She heard him cross the room and blow out the lantern on the coffer. Returning to the bed, he also snuffed the large night candle on its wrought-iron stand, plunging the room into darkness. Her heart caught in her throat and she didn’t quite suppress a squeak of alarm as she felt his weight on the other side of the mattress.
‘I hope you are less afraid of the dark than you are of seeing men and women as God intended,’ he said wryly. She heard the rustle and whisper of him shedding the rest of his clothes in the dark and then the draught of air as he lifted the covers and got in beside her. She took short, shallow breaths, hardly daring to move, wondering fearfully what he was going to do next. Would it be better if she could see? Keep the light but close her eyes?
He broke the silence with a sigh. ‘We both have a duty,’ he said. ‘The marriage must be consummated. Do you understand?’
‘Y... yes, my lord.’ Her words hardly stirred the air. She felt him turn towards her, his hand against her hair and then on her neck, sliding to cup her shoulder. ‘I swear to you I will do my best not to hurt you.’ The covers rustled as he leaned over and began kissing her on brow, eyelids, cheek, mouth corner, and then finally on the lips. Her stomach tensed until she felt as if it were touching her spine. She didn’t know how to answer him. What was she supposed to do? Clumsily she tried to kiss him back and, with great daring, set her arms around his neck. After a moment, she decided that she quite enjoyed the kissing and the closeness. She curled tentative fingers in the hair at his nape. However, when he stroked her breasts, she jumped like a startled deer. Her mother had never said that her husband would do this; she had only spoken in the broadest terms about the deed itself, but Aline could hardly ask John if this was a necessary part of the rite. It must be, if he was doing it. Then he lowered his head. As his lips tugged on her nipple, she felt a sharp flicker of sensation that arrowed directly to her loins. She gasped and tightened her fingers in his hair as new, bewildering feelings tingled through her body. This had to be the sin of lust against which priests were always warning folk to be on their guard. If she followed the path he was illuminating for her it might lead to hell. But oh, it was so nice to be held and caressed and soothed.
He stroked her rib cage, her belly, her thighs, and then, softly, with one finger, the forbidden place between her legs. She gave a cry of protest at this new intimacy. She had never put her own hand there, would not have dared.
‘Hush,’ he murmured. ‘Hush, it’s all right.’
But it wasn’t all right because the feelings had reached a new pitch and she was scared she was going to dissolve, or that God would strike her for her wantonness. She could feel the sweat on his skin, and her own where their bodies touched . . . it was carnal, indecent . . . and, God forgive her, it felt wonderful.
There was a sudden, cold draught as he drew back and knelt up. He was doing something, she wasn’t sure what, but his breathing grew harsh and swift. He lay over her again, kissing her, whispering reassurances in her ear, nuzzling her throat. She felt a blunt, hot nudge at the juncture of her thighs, followed by a slow, firm invasion that made her arch and gasp. Then he was over her, taking his upper weight on his forearms while his hips thrust forward, pressing into her body. She shook, trying to control her breathing while discomfort warred with flutters and twinges of the lust feeling. He pulled back a little, pushed once, twice, then a more forceful third time that made her whimper. His breath caught, he shuddered, and Aline shuddered with him. After a long pause, he sighed, kissed her throat, eased from her body and lay down.
Aline bit her lip, feeling ashamed, knowing she would have to go to confession and own up to the sin of wanton lechery. There was a hot seep between her thighs. She was glad it was dark so she didn’t have to see it. Her mother had told her there would be blood as a sign of her virginity, and that the man’s seed itself consisted of purified blood. She didn’t want to think about that aspect, or the disturbing, shameful response of her body to his touch.
‘Did I please you, my lord?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Did I do it right?’
There was a long hesitation before he answered and his voice was devoid of inflection. ‘You did your duty as a wife.’ The mattress shook as he left the bed. An instant later, sparks flared from a strike-a-light and, from the tiny flame kindled on dry tinder, he relit the night candle. Aline squinted at him. His back was turned. His body was long and straight, lean at the hip. Her cheeks flamed. She tried to tell herself that it was just as Adam must have looked in the Garden of Eden. Then he turned round and her eyes widened. Dear God,
that
had been inside her! Adam surely never had one of those! She looked away in shock.
that
had been inside her! Adam surely never had one of those! She looked away in shock.
John had noticed the direction of her stare. Swiftly but without undue haste, he donned his braies and tied the waist belt. ‘You’ll become accustomed in time,’ he said drily. ‘I am made no different from any man, and that includes the priest who hears your confession - and Christ himself, come to that.’
Aline gave a dismayed squeak.
‘You think me blasphemous? I am only trying to put matters in perspective. Do you want some wine?’
Aline wordlessly shook her head. He sighed and, returning to the bed, sat down beside her. Gently he pushed a strand of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear. ‘It has been difficult for you, hasn’t it? I can understand that. I don’t have sisters, but I know women well enough. You should sleep.’
‘Have you . . . have you finished with me, my lord?’
He winced. ‘It’s hardly what a groom wants to hear on his wedding night, but yes. I will not trouble you again ... unless of course you want to trouble me.’
She looked down but not before he had caught the flash of dismay in her gaze. ‘I thought not,’ he said and donned his shirt.
‘You . . . you are not staying?’
He shook his head. ‘I am not tired and I have work to do.’ He picked up her chemise from the floor and handed it to her. ‘Here, put this back on, if it eases you to sleep in your clothes.’
Aline clutched it to her bosom and her eyes filled with gratitude. ‘Thank you, my lord, thank you!’
‘Don’t make a fuss over trifles,’ he said, and left the room.
As he closed the door behind him, Aline scrambled into the chemise and tied the lace at her throat, as if in so doing she could hide from herself. She didn’t dare to look at the sheet, because she knew she would be ill. There was a dull throb between her thighs and she skittered away from the memory of his body within hers. She had done her duty according to God’s will. Latch on to that thought and use it for comfort.
Kneeling at the bedside, clutching her prayer beads, she closed her eyes and resumed her prayers, asking the Virgin to make her a good wife and help her cope with the changes that being married was going to bring.
John sat down on the bench before the hearth in the main room and signalled to one of the men for the wine jug. They were looking at him askance, and he didn’t blame them. He’d have been surprised too, had he been one of their company.
‘I surely didn’t expect to see you this side of the dawn, my lord,’ said his cook Walchelin as he obligingly poured a goblet and handed it to John. He moved with a lop-sided twist, the result of a horse falling on him when he had been one of John’s serving serjeants. Since he was no longer fit for active duty, but owned skill with a ladle and could drive a baggage cart, John had found him a new niche in his household. His tongue was as robust as his cooking. ‘Which shows how many virgins you’ve had in your life,’ John said grimly, and drank.
Walchelin cupped his chin. ‘How many have you had then, my lord?’
‘A surfeit,’ John replied, and took his goblet outside. Winchester was mostly dark under the cover of an overcast starless night. The breeze was warm and smelled of imminent rain with a ripe undercurrent of midden. The occasional light flickered in a house where the shutters had been left open. The shoemaker next door was working late over his leather. Muted by distance he heard a woman shouting and what sounded like a pot crashing against a door. His lower lids tensed in brief sympathy. Not that any woman had ever hurled a pot at him, although many would perhaps have liked to.
Drinking his wine, he grimaced. The consummation had been awkward, but he had expected no less. He didn’t understand why men should think the taking of a virgin such a wonderful experience. Aside from knowing that any child begotten of the deed would be of their siring, and the virile feeling of being the taker of innocence, there was far more pleasure to be had from an experienced woman who knew her business. Initiating Aline had been like dancing with someone who had no idea of the steps . . . and who was afraid to try them out in case she fell over - or worse, started enjoying herself. He hadn’t mistaken her response when she dropped her guard, but he wasn’t sure he had the patience to keep on coaxing her. Then again, it was his duty to bed her until he got her with child, as it was hers to open to him. Remembering her horrified stare as she looked at him, still erect and naked, he didn’t know whether to laugh or curse. He had wanted innocence and had well and truly received it. A door slammed and another pot crashed. John toasted the sound and drained his cup. Done was done. For better or worse, he had a wife, her lands and a marriage bed.
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