Claudia Dain (30 page)

"Then she is to marry Ulrich? That is certain?" Marguerite asked.

"Very certain," Maud said.

* * *

"Are you certain?" Lunete asked.

"Aye, I am," William answered.

They walked in a shuffling amble across the bailey, heading nowhere, in no hurry, eager only to talk and think and set all to rights within their childish heads.

"He marries her for her land, then," Lunete said.

"Why else to marry? He wants a place to call his own. What sin in that?"

"No sin. I only thought..."

"Aye?"

"I only thought that, being a knight of some name, he would have other choices."

"What is wrong with choosing Juliane?" William asked.

"Many would choose Juliane," she said. "It is only that Juliane does not like being chosen. She will not like it that he has nothing to bring to the bargaining."

"He brings all he has."

"Aye, but a woman likes a high price set upon her. He has no coin, no land, no title with which to pay. How, then, can he attain her? Is her worth valued so low? That is what she will think."

"Is that what you think?" William asked.

Lunete shrugged. "I am betrothed. My husband is a man of much land in Dunvegan."

"Where is Dunvegan?"

"Far to the north of here and on the coast. 'Tis a good match. My father gains much by it—a good meadow and a mill."

"What of you? What do you gain?"

Lunete looked at William, at his black hair and clear gray eyes, at his quiet and careful posture, at his youth. Her betrothed, her husband in all but body, was a man fully thirty years of age.

"I gain a husband."

* * *

"So," Juliane said, looking at Ulrich. "So, I gain a husband with a living son. St. Ives is lost to my family forever. You bargain hard, my lord, yet I cannot say I am surprised by that."

"I did not set this bargain in motion, lady; that was done by others."

"Yet you ride this tide most gladly."

"That I do," he said, looking only at her, ignoring all others within the lord's solar.

He would say no more, not with so much resting upon this hour. There was much left to do, much left for him to achieve in Stanora. He could not let Juliane fill his thoughts. Not yet, though he felt the lure of her most strong.

There was more to this marriage than land. He did not expect her to see that; she was too full of her own defeat. Yet it was so. He wanted her for herself. He also needed a place to give him a name, a home, and a legacy for his son. He had to have that. It was at the heart of all he did. But still, there was Juliane. He wanted her.

And he wanted to protect her.

This public consummation—for it would be public with three pairs of eyes watching to see that he did not fall, watching to see that he slid full into her, watching to see that he pierced her to her blood—this he did not want for her. 'Twas much to ask her to endure, yet her father, and her uncle and brother, did ask it of her. Was there a way out?

There must be.

But first the matter of St. Ives must be settled.

"Will the matter stand?" he asked, turning again to Conor and then to Philip, still lord of this place and all within it. "St. Ives must stay mine and pass to my son. I can do him no less."

"And if your son dies?" Conor asked.

"If my son dies and there is no living child between Juliane and myself, then let St. Ives fall again to you," Ulrich said. "Does the bargain stand?" he asked Philip.

Ulrich stood to lose very little. His son would not die unless by God's express will, a thing which could not be run from, no matter where a man ran. He would keep to Juliane; that union would not fail. But if God closed her womb against his seed, there was nothing to be done about it. To bring a child into life and to maturity was God's doing, not his.

"It stands," Philip said, his eyes shining with hope. Ulrich meant to see that hope fulfilled. He would not let Juliane fall from his grasp. He would be the man her father hoped he would be.

"Draw up the contracts," Walter said. "They will be married before the setting of the sun."

"Aye, my lord," the clerk said, already writing frantically. Much had been decided in this chamber, and all of it must be recorded. There must be no disputes later.

"Such haste rarely reflects the Lord's will," Father Matthew said.

"It reflects my will, and that will have to be enough," Philip said. "You have your lands, Matthew. Take them and be glad."

"These lands are for God, for His use," Matthew said.

"And win enrich the coffers of the church," Walter said. "My father speaks rightly. Take what you have won and be glad of it. This marriage will seal all bargains. Let there be no delay."

"Are you content with that, Juliane?" Ulrich asked. She had been very quiet for very long now; much had been decided, and she had fought little. 'Twas not like what he knew of her, and he was wary.

"Content?" she said, looking at all within that chamber, at the men who had decided her life upon the urgency of her father's death, robbing her of the holding that should have been hers and giving her a man who brought nothing to enrich her. She looked at them all, her anger smoldering, ready to blaze forth with the proper fuel. "Aye, I am content. Only let this begin quickly. Let us proceed with all speed. The sooner begun, the sooner finished."

"This marriage will not be finished unless it is by death," Ulrich said.

"Then let it be so," she said, smiling at him most pleasantly.

Aye, he was wary.

Chapter 17

They ate while the contracts were being drawn up. To proceed with the marriage without the signing of the contracts would have been pointless. Marriages were agreements, transfers of land and wealth. The marriage ceremony devised by the church fathers was the symbolic union of man to wife. The actual union was the signed and witnessed contract. She knew that. She was no such fool as to believe that any marriage was a union of souls bound until death parted them. If that were so, why were there contracts?

Nay, 'twas all of power and its transfer, and in her case, transferred away from her.

She had been a woman of means an hour ago. Now she was nothing, dependent upon her betrothed for home and name. If she were not so hungry, she just might gag up her meal, proving her anger by the act. But she was hungry and she was no fool. Her battle against Ulrich would come later, when they were bound, life to life, purse to purse, body to body. It was in the shelter of their marriage bed that she would stretch out her claws.

She would fight him. She could do naught else, though she knew she would lose.

That was foretold, no matter what the troubadours sang of her. A woman had just so many weapons with which to defeat a man, and hers had been spent upon the battle of Ulrich from the moment of his coming through Stanora's gates.

He was a mighty adversary.

He would make a very difficult husband.

This matter of the witnesses to the consummation was most inconvenient. How her father had been pressured into it, she did not understand. Certainly, if he were not battling death with both hands it would never have happened. At least Maud would be with her. Perhaps, between the two of them, something could be arranged. It was not beyond possibility.

"If you think to escape this, it is not possible," Ulrich said at her side. "You are mine now, and I will keep you."

She continued eating, not glancing at him. Nothing disturbed a man more than to be ignored.

"You were more amusing in our wagering," she said. "As a husband, you have little to offer."

"What I have to offer even you can see, Juliane. Look down and see what I bring you."

Of course he would offer
that
. When thwarted, what could a man do but dive deep into crudeness? She would not look down into his lap. She knew what she would see.

"Are you unusual in your offering?" she said, munching contentedly on a slice of pork. "All bear me the same gift. At least in the beginning. Whether your gift will survive the night is another matter."

"You know I will outlast any device of yours, lady. Even the wielding of a knife shall not deter me," he said.

He sounded angry. That was good.

He was too strong, this one; she could not yield to mercy or tenderness in her battle against him. She would not be married. She would not be stripped of all she owned to feed his greed. She would escape this trap somehow. Somehow. It would be done. It could always be done, if a woman used all her weapons. She had only to find another weapon.

Their marriage bed would be a battle plain.

"We shall see whose 'knife' falls first, my lord," she said, smiling at him as she wiped pork fat from the edge of her mouth with the back of her hand. It was a man's gesture, and she did it to goad him. She was no shrinking, shy, sweet damsel. Let him see the strength of her for what it was. In this game, she was his equal. It was only needful that he believe that. Perhaps it was the sureness of her legend that was her final weapon. How could he defeat what all others had fallen against? The power of belief was a strong weapon indeed. "My knife is ready to do battle. Is yours?"

His eyes glittered hard blue, like sapphires in a cold winter sky. He did not answer her, not in words. He took his thumb and rubbed it across her mouth. She could feel the smooth slide of animal grease upon her lips, and then he licked his thumb, smiling like a wolf before the bite.

She swallowed hard against his touch and the animal image of him. There were times when he surprised her, when the smiling knight of courtly fame disappeared into the mists and this raw, wolfish man arose in his place. This man she feared most. This man, this wolf of passion, would not play by any rules she knew in the games of courtly love and honeyed seduction.

This man would not turn or fall from any blade, but would impale himself upon it, smiling as he bled. And then grin hard, as he in turn impaled her upon his throbbing blade.

Aye, she could see it in his eyes. That was what he would do. And there would be no remorse in him and no mercy for her.

Ulrich pressed all this into her thoughts with the cold sparkle of his eyes, and then he took her hand from where it rested on the tabletop and guided it resolutely to his lap. He pressed her palm hard down upon him, down upon his jerking, hot knife, and then he grinned in cold supremacy.

"My knife is ready, eager to find blood and quench its thirst for passion and for flesh. Can you meet it, Juliane, or will you run, searching for escape? I tell you now, there is no escape for you. You are mine. Find what pleasure in it you can."

"There can be no pleasure for me in you, my Lord Nothing," she said, searching for anything to say which would put him off and cast him from her. She did not relish a fight she was not certain of winning.

"My Lord St. Ives, lady," he said. "If you would insult me, get the name right."

Her hand was still pressed hard against his passion, and, his smile fading like the sun at sunset, he rubbed her against him, forcing her to learn the length and breadth of him, holding her to his passion when she had none of her own. She would not win by falling into passion's maw.

The sensations that pricked along her spine and settled in her belly were revulsion and determination to escape this ill-gotten pairing, nothing more. Passion served her not; 'twas a man's game, and only a man could win it.

"If you seek release, pray do it yourself. Your hand will serve as well as mine. Better, for you know how to service yourself as I never will," she said, pulling her hand from his.

He yanked her hand back and pulled her to him, growling slightly deep in his throat. "Lady, you play with fire and will be consumed in an instant, burned beyond all reckoning. This game you cannot win. Leave off baiting me. I will not run from this or from you."

"I do not fear the fire."

"You will," he breathed in promise, pressing her hand down against his erection, which was still hot and throbbing and undaunted by her thrusts against his pride.