The Champion (42 page)
‘You should see the kitchens, Simon,’ he said to the other scribe. ‘If ever hell existed on earth, it’s there. All the ovens burning full blast and cooks up to their armpits in bodies – pigs and sheep mainly,’ he said as an aside to reassure Monday.
‘You should not jest about such matters,’ the other scribe reproved and, laying down his quill, opened and closed his cramped fingers.
‘I wasn’t jesting,’ the younger man retorted with a roll of his eyes, and beckoned Monday to help him transfer the contents of the basket to the trestle.
She sat down to eat with the scribes, and discovered, along with a ravenous appetite, that her saviour’s name was Brother Ambrose of Pont l’Arche, and that he had been a scribe and chaplain in John’s household for almost four years. The other one, Simon, said very little, but she gathered that he was by far the senior, and that he disapproved strongly of John’s moral weakness.
‘I suppose that you have seen many different women in this chamber,’ Monday ventured as she devoured yet another chunk of bread. Under the onslaught of food, her headache had eased, and the friendliness of the younger scribe made her feel less vulnerable.
‘A few,’ Ambrose said with a shrug, ‘but not as many as his reputation suggests. There are worse sins in the world. I would not like to work in King Richard’s private chamber.’
The older scribe cleared his throat warningly and Ambrose fell to eating his meal. ‘It is true though,’ he said between mouthfuls.
‘True or not, gossip will only get you into trouble.’ Simon’s eyes flickered to Monday.
‘It will not spread from me,’ she said with dignity. ‘And you are not telling secrets to the ignorant; I know of what you speak.’ But Simon was right, she thought. Listening to gossip was interesting, but joining in was dangerous. With diplomacy, she excused herself to go and check upon Florian. He was still deeply asleep, and she judged that he would remain so until the early morning. She slipped off her shoes, removed her overgown, and covering herself with her cloak, lay down beside him.
She neither remembered closing her eyes, nor falling asleep, but the next thing she knew there was a hand at her shoulder, and a voice dark with wine fumes against her ear. ‘Is the floor more pleasing to you than my bed?’ it enquired with amusement. The words were unslurred, revealing that while John had been drinking, he was certainly not drunk.
Monday turned sleepily and received the heat of a deep kiss. His hands roved beneath her cloak, over her breasts, and lightly between her thighs until her breath caught at the pleasure. ‘I thought you might want your bed to yourself,’ she murmured and set her arms around his neck.
‘Why should I want to sleep alone when I can sleep with you?’ It was pitch-dark, the candles long since snuffed. His beard was crisp and silky against her throat, and as he lay over her, the feel of his confined erection pressed up hard against the juncture of her thighs was delicious. But not so delicious that she forgot her small son asleep beside them.
‘Perhaps I should take you here on the floor like a kitchen wench,’ John said, biting her neck. ‘We can rut in the straw like two peasants.’
The idea was obviously appealing to him, for his breathing had grown more ragged, and he made small, grinding motions with his hips.
‘Not in here, what about Florian,’ she said breathlessly, ‘or do you want it to be so real that a wailing child dampens your ardour mid-way?’
John swore softly with a mingling of irritation and lust. He picked her up, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her forearm and thigh, and carried her into the main chamber, but not to the bed. They could sport there any time, and its feather softness was not appropriate to the savage tide of lust sweeping over him at the moment. Finesse had always mattered to John. His way with women, his ability as a lover, were areas where Richard was the poor relation. But now and then, to take in primeval urgency was in its own way as much a delight as lingering foreplay. He dropped her on the floor, yanked her gown up, tore her loin cloth away, and freeing his erection from his braies, entered her in a single, hard thrust.
By all the rules of decency Monday should have been shocked at what they were doing, but in the last few days as they travelled, she had begun to discover a wilder side to herself, as if agreeing to become John’s mistress had freed that part of her personality. She might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. And having given herself permission to enjoy what had previously been forbidden territory, she was willing to play John’s games.
Her legs clasped at his spine, her climax was as swift and fierce as his, and she had to stifle a scream of pure pleasure against the gilded neckband of his tunic. There was no sound in the aftermath, but the ragged counterpoint of their breathing, and the thundering of their hearts.
‘Jesu!’ John gasped when he could speak. ‘If that had lasted any longer, I would have died!’ He rolled off her and sat up on the floor. ‘Not that I’d have minded,’ he added breathlessly, and gave a short laugh. ‘I haven’t felt lust like that since I was a green youth.’
Monday sat up too, and lowered the gown he had bunched around her hips in his urgency. Her loins still trembled. She would have been happy for it to last as long as forever.
John rose and helped her to her feet. ‘How old are you, Monday?’ he asked, and kissed her lips gently this time, then her cheek and her eyelids.
‘I am not sure, my lord. About nineteen years old, I think.’
‘Nineteen,’ he mused and shook his head. ‘Perhaps I need your youth to remember my own.’
‘My lord?’
‘Ah, nothing. A man spills his seed and it reminds him of his mortality, and gives him an inordinate urge to fall asleep. Of a sudden, my bed seems more appealing than the floor.’ He tugged her towards its dim outline.
‘Do you want me to rub your back?’ Monday asked, for already she knew that it was one of John’s particular pleasures, and like a cat, he never tired of it.
‘Who needs heaven in the afterlife when they can have it here on earth?’ he answered with a smile in his voice.
‘So, you’re a fully fledged monk now,’ said Father Ambrose, eyeing Hervi’s neat tonsure. Strangely, the style suited him. He had shed weight since the trauma of losing his leg, and the austerity of the monastic routine had done the rest. Now his bones were more prominent, displaying a stubborn strength of character, and the hazel eyes were marked with experience, suffering, and a hidden glint of irreverent humour.
‘I have taken the vows,’ Hervi nodded, ‘but I’m not fledged enough to spread my wings yet.’ He patted the bald ring on top of his scalp somewhat self-consciously and comforted himself with the fact that sooner or later he would have lost his hair anyway if his older brothers were any indication.
‘But you will.’ It was a statement, not a question.
‘Oh, yes,’ Hervi said confidently. ‘And sooner, rather than later. I am happy here, but it is not my goal.’
‘Then what is?’ Ambrose asked curiously.
‘There is a certain priory close to my family’s lands in England.’
‘You want to be closer to your family?’
‘Oh no!’ Hervi denied with an appalled laugh. ‘God forbid that myself and Reginald should see more of each other than forced. I want to go to Cranwell because the existing prior is not fit to rule; because the house is rife with lust and corruption. Replace the prior, and the monastery would be cleansed in one fell swoop.’ His mouth tightened. ‘Alexander was a novice there, the reason he’s so wary of priests today. His back was whipped bloody to feed the man’s carnal appetites. I want to put a stop to Father Alkmund’s abuses, and I can best do it from within. Even given my crippled leg, I’m as active as any man. My mind may not be educated, but it is every bit as sharp as those around me.’ His tone had developed vehemence, and hearing himself, he stopped, and shook his head ruefully. ‘I become carried away. Patience has been one of the hardest skills to learn.’ He rubbed his thigh where the leather straps of his wooden stump were chaffing. ‘I need to learn more yet; I need to convince my superiors that I am full worthy and capable of responsibility.’
Ambrose eyed him. ‘I think you will do that easily,’ he said. ‘Your will is so strong, I can almost see it.’
Hervi gave a grim smile and shook his head. ‘Let us speak of different things,’ he said. ‘How is the life of the court these days? What news of the outside world?’
Ambrose shrugged. ‘What do you want to know? The truce is straining at the seams and small pockets of warfare keep bursting the stitches. Last month there was a meeting at Château Gaillard to confirm a peace treaty, but King Philip stormed out and refused to sign. Not that my lords Richard or John were particularly put out. They have the measure of the King of France – or at least Richard does. And John makes an admirable captive, even if he cannot swing a sword with the same panache as his brother.’
‘Is he trustworthy these days? I recall he was ever one for muddying the waters.’
‘Oh, he’s learned his lesson,’ Ambrose said. ‘With Richard missing, perhaps even dead on his way home from crusade, what else was John to do but make a bid for power? It was understandable. Now he knows that if he sets a foot wrong, he will be denied his inheritance in favour of Arthur of Brittany. He has to prove his value and goodwill to Richard in order to remain his heir. And Richard’s lands are well within his future grasp since Richard shows no inclination to spend time with his wife.’
‘Knowing Richard’s ‘inclinations’, I would say that your lord is looking at a crown,’ Hervi agreed drily.
Apart from waggling his eyebrows to show that he knew what Hervi meant, Ambrose maintained a diplomatic silence on the subject.
‘Mind you,’ Hervi added, ‘John spends no time with his wife either, from what I have heard. He is too busy sporting with his mistresses.’
The vices and lusts of the royal house of Anjou were not really matters to be aired in the cloisters of a dignified abbey where theology and church matters should have been the order of the day, but Ambrose could no more resist the lure than Hervi could resist asking.
‘He only has the one at the moment,’ Ambrose said, ‘and she is not a painted courtesan, but a pleasant, fresh young woman.’
‘I suppose John is thoroughly immersed in corrupting her then,’ Hervi said with a grimace.
Ambrose looked thoughtful. ‘I think not,’ he murmured after due consideration. ‘If anything she is good for him. Yes, he buys her presents and takes her to his bed at every opportunity, with little respect for what is decent, but I do believe she lightens his darker moods, and since he has only had her since the summer, the flame is still new and bright. She might appear gentle and innocent, but she is also a very resourceful young woman.’
Hervi looked into the distance, his inner vision filled with the image of a grey-eyed girl with a thick plait of bronze-brown hair. ‘I knew a girl like that,’ he said with pain in his voice. ‘I wish I still did.’
Ambrose gave him a look sidelong. ‘It is not wise for a monk to dwell on thoughts of women lest he be tempted into sin,’ he warned.
‘My thoughts are not carnal,’ Hervi said with a sigh. ‘They are of regret. Do you remember that you were asked to marry my brother Alexander to a girl he had deflowered, and that she could not be found?’
‘You are thinking of her?’
Hervi nodded. ‘We never discovered what had happened to her. Alex swears that she still lives, and I pray daily that he is right.’
The church bell rang through the stone arches of the cloisters, and across the abbey grounds, summoning the monks to vespers in the late gold of the autumn evening.
‘Then I will pray too,’ Ambrose volunteered, and rose from the stone bench on which they had been seated.
Hervi smiled, but the expression did not reach his eyes, which remained sombre.
The bolts of fabric shimmered across the bed in waves of eye-aching colour. Silks and patterned damasks imported from Italy and the east, soft English lambswool, woven by skilled craftsmen in Flanders, finely textured linens in more muted shades, and a riot of braids and trimmings, fur tippets and coloured glass beads.
Monday could only gaze with open mouth upon such splendour. John’s generosity had already clothed her in warmth and luxury beyond her imagination. Today she wore a gown of paleblue linen topped by a tunic in darker-blue wool trimmed with thread of gold, and her shoes were of the softest leather designed in an exquisite latticework of cut-out shapes. Gifts for services rendered.
John stood beside her now, laughing at her astonishment. ‘Have you nothing to say, sweetheart?’
She shook her head. ‘My senses are dazzled.’ She reached a tentative hand to stroke one of the cloths, a rich tawny-gold woven through with crimson peacocks. ‘I have never seen such an array.’
‘Well, become accustomed.’ Despite the presence of the Rouen cloth merchant, he set his arm around her waist and fitted her to his side, hip suggestively against hip. ‘You like that gold?’
She nodded. ‘But for you, not me.’
He leaned forward to finger it too, with a connoisseur’s eye. John’s love of finery was as legend as his brother’s military reputation, and cost the tax-payer’s coffers almost as much. ‘Yes,’ he said, and instructed the merchant to cut enough for a long court robe. He also pointed to another, similar cloth, if anything more sumptuously worked than the first. ‘As a gift for the Bishop of Rouen,’ he said. ‘The old goat will be delighted. And this, for my lady,’ he added, and with unerring taste selected another damask the colour of a summer sea, green on blue.
Monday opened her mouth, but quickly closed it again. She had been rather taken with a soft wool in a deep, rosy pink, but knew better than to say so. She had learned that although John liked to give her gifts, they were always of his choosing. She was his pet. Pampered and indulged because it was his whim to do so. She knew that the wider she opened her eyes and the more dumbstruck she appeared, the better John liked it. He enjoyed her answering back to him in the bedchamber or in conversation only if she played the precocious child. The moment she sparred with her intellect or attempted to speak as an equal, his interest waned.
