The Innocent (8 page)

"I'm off, then," Arthur said. "The hearth is drawing nicely, and your kettle is coming to a boil, Elf. Can I carry your basket?"

"Nay, I'm fine," she replied with a wave as she reentered her little shed. She placed her basket upon a small wooden table and began to separate the plants she had just cut. She had about finished when the door to the shed opened. Elf looked up. "What," she demanded, "are
you
doing here?"

"I have wanted to apologize to you, Eleanore, for the other day. My behavior was most unchivalrous. Still," Saer de Bude said, "no man who saw you would blame me. Despite your drab robes, you are a lovely young woman, lady."

"I will accept your apology, for to refuse it would be most un-Christian of me," Elf told him.

"What is it you do here?" he asked her.

"I make medicines, elixirs, and salves," Elf replied, wishing he would go away.

"Like a good chatelaine," he said, smiling at her.

"I assist our infirmarian, Sister Winifred," Elf told him.

"What is that kettle boiling on your hearth now?" He moved into the small shed, closing the door behind him, and peered into the pot. "The smell is familiar."

"I am making a syrup of lettuce," Elf told him. Why would he not go?

"I have heard lettuce dulls desire," he remarked.

"You obviously do not eat it," Elf replied tartly.

Saer de Bude laughed aloud. There was more to the little nun than they had realized. She could be humorous. Something he had not expected. And she was not as vapid as she appeared. No, not at all. "Lady," he said, "I will be frank with you." He had decided in that instant that to dissemble with the girl was not wise. "I am a younger son. I want my own manor. If you would reconsider your decision to return to your convent to take your final vows, I should make you a good husband. My mother was a de Warenne, and my father’s family is a respected one in Normandy. I have always been a man of honor."

"Nay, sir, you are not honorable at all, for you have committed adultery with my brother’s wife. I am not so great a fool that I did not realize it, although I prayed it not be so. I hope Dickon never knew, although I think he did, for he was no fool, either. There is talk among the serfs that you and Isleen poisoned my brother. No formal accusations can be made for nothing can be proven. In that you are safe. As for me, I am God’s chosen, and will wed with no man. If you want Ashlin, then speak with the Reverend Mother Eunice at the convent. It will be her decision as to how Ashlin is disposed of, and she may be seeking a tenant."

"I will be no one’s tenant," he said grimly. Then reaching out, he pulled her into his arms. "Lady, I will have Ashlin, and I will have you whether you will, or no."

Elf attempted to squirm from his grasp, but he held her too tightly. "Let me go this instant, sir!" she said in her firmest voice.

Laughing mockingly he kissed her, his lips smashing hard on her soft mouth. One arm pinioned her to his broad chest while his other hand reached up, hooked itself into the round neckline of her tunica, and yanked the fabric of both her gown and her camisa asunder. The marauding hand pushed the materials aside and captured a round breast, squeezing it hard.

His sudden attack both astounded and terrified her. She couldn't breathe, and his grasp on her person was like iron. Desperately she tore her mouth away from his, and tried to scream, but her throat muscles seemed constricted and nothing but a small squeak came forth. She grew faint, and struggled to maintain consciousness even as she fell back against his arm.

"There is a river of passion within you, Eleanore," Saer de Bude growled. "I will awaken it." His mouth pressed kisses against her white throat while his hand fondled her breast hungrily. "By the time I am through with you this day, no convent on earth will have you, my pretty. You will be a very despoiled dove, Eleanore." Then he kicked her legs from beneath her.

She fell to the floor with an
"Offffff,"
the wind temporarily knocked out of her. He stood above her, straddling her as he loosened his garments, then pulled forth his swollen manhood. "This, my pretty, is all for you!" Then he lowered himself, covering her body with his.

The sight, her first sight, of an engorged manhood restored Elf’s voice, and she began to scream at the top of her lungs. Strength flowed back into her body, and she fought him as if she were fighting for her very life, and in a sense she was. If he violated her, her life as a nun was finished. She would be forced into marriage with him, and that was the last thing on earth that Eleanore de Montfort wanted. Her hands reached out, clawing at his handsome face as he pushed her skirts up and began to push her resisting thighs apart with his knee. Her shrieks grew louder, frantic peal after frantic peal rending the quiet afternoon air.

Saer de Bude slapped the girl beneath him, hard. "Shut up, you little bitch!" he shouted at her, and he slapped her again and again to silence her cries, but Elf would not be silenced.

"Help! Help!"
she shouted as loudly as she could.

"You wanted this," he snarled. "Admit it, you little bitch!
You wanted it!"

"No! No!"
Elf screamed.

"You'll like it," he promised thickly. Her resistance was the most exciting he had ever encountered.

God save me!
Elf thought as her strength began to give out, and as if in answer to that prayer, the door to the herbarium burst open. Elf heard Arthur’s voice swearing a string of extremely colorful oaths as he grabbed Saer de Bude by his neck and dragged him off the resisting girl. Immediately the boy’s fist made contact with the man’s chin, and Saer de Bude fell back to the floor, his head striking the edge of the slate table. Elf scrambled up, pulling her skirts down, clutching the torn fabric of her upper garment across her chest.

"Come on," Arthur said, grabbing her other hand.

"But he’s injured," Elf protested. "I must see to him."

Arthur pulled her from the shed. "We'll send someone from the house to tend to him. By the rood, Elf, you are either a saint or a fool! The slimy bastard tried to rape you, and you would tend to his wounds?" He dragged her up the path to the manor house and into the hall. "Cedric! Grandmother!" he shouted as he entered.

"Holy Mary, and all the saints in heaven," Ida said as she saw Elf. "What has happened to my baby?"

"The knight tried to rape her," Arthur answered bluntly.

"I'm all right, thanks to Arthur," Elf said, "but the knight lies wounded in the herbarium. Arthur hit him, and Saer de Bude hit his head when he fell. Send someone for the sheriff! I will press charges against the man for his attack on me."

"Nay," Cedric the steward said grimly. " 'Tis our Arthur who would be arrested, lady, for he is a serf, and he has hit a noble. The punishment for that crime is death. We will take care of the knight, but you must return immediately to your convent, and Arthur must go with you to beg sanctuary. He will be safe there until you can explain to the sheriff what has happened. It will be a far more effective story told within your convent walls than here at Ashlin. Go to the stable, boy, and saddle two horses. Lady, we will see to the knight, I promise."

"I must know before I go if we have killed him," Elf said.

"I will check myself," Cedric answered, and hurried from the hall.

When he returned several minutes later, Ida had managed to pack up Elf’s small belongings, and Elf had changed into a fresh camisa and tunica. Isleen had been napping, and had not heard the two women creeping about.

"The knight will live, worse luck," Cedric said. "He was already trying to sit up. I told him we would send aid. Now, lady, you must go! We will take the other horses in the stable out to the far pasture to make it difficult to follow you, but I do not believe the knight will be in any condition to chase after you for a day or two. He is injured enough, but sadly not mortally."

"I want them both out of Ashlin as soon as Saer de Bude can travel, Cedric. Send to Baron Hugh in my name for an escort for his daughter and her cousin. By the time they arrive, that wretched man should be ready to travel, even if he has to go in a Utter!"

"Yes, my lady," the steward answered her, with a small smile. "Godspeed you."

"And God bless all here at Ashlin," Elf answered. Then with Ida at her side, she hurried from the hall to where Arthur was waiting with two horses for them.

The boy helped his mistress onto her horse, then mounted his own. "Good-bye, Grandmother," he said, and Ida began to weep.

"Now, Ida," Elf told her old nursemaid, "I will let nothing happen to Arthur. He did nothing wrong. If worse comes to worst, I will send him into Wales, where Norman law cannot touch him." She drew the old lady’s hand up to her lips, and kissed it. "Farewell, my old dearie. God bless you."

"The Holy Virgin keep you safe, my baby," Ida sobbed. Then she whirled and ran back into the house.

"Can you go faster than a walk?" Arthur asked her.

"Can you?" Elf teased back, and kicked her mount into a canter.

They rode straight through the eight miles to St. Frideswide's, reaching it at sunset.

"Welcome back, Eleanore de Montfort," Sister Perpetua, the convent portress, greeted her as they came through the gates.

"Thank you, good sister," Elf replied. "This is my serf, Arthur. He asks us for sanctuary, and when Reverend Mother hears my tale, I believe she will give it to him."

"Elf!" Isabeaux St. Simon ran forward as Elf dismounted her horse. "I didn't know you were coming today!"

"Neither did I," Elf said. "Isa, will you go find Reverend Mother, and ask her if she will see me on a most urgent matter."

Isa nodded and hurried off. Several minutes later she returned. "She'll see you in the chapter house." Her eyes flicked to Arthur. "Who is this?" she asked.

"My serf," Elf said with no further explanation.

"Oh," Isa said, her interest waning. The handsome young man was only a serf. For a moment she thought that perhaps Elf had decided not to take her final vows now that she was an heiress; that mayhap she would marry, and that her companion was her chosen.

"Come with me," Elf said to Arthur, and hurried off across the cloister toward the chapter house. Moving quickly through the door, Arthur in her wake, Elf headed directly to the hall, where Reverend Mother Eunice awaited. She made obeisance to the abbess, flattening herself upon the floor before her.

"Rise, my daughter, and tell me why you have arrived so precipitously, and in this young man’s company," Reverend Mother Eunice said.

"This is Arthur, my serf, Reverend Mother, and he would beg sanctuary of us. You must give it to him, for he saved me this day from a fate worse than death," Elf began, arising to stand before the abbess. She then went on to explain, telling the Reverend Mother all that had happened since her arrival home at Ashlin: her brother’s subsequent death, her sister-in-law’s insistence that she give up her calling and marry, Saer de Bude’s attack on her person this very day. "If Arthur had not been nearby and heard my cries, I should have surely been ravished and despoiled." She began to weep softly. "I should not have been able to return to St. Frideswide's, and been forced into marriage with that horrible man! And poor Arthur! Because he came to my aid, he will now be condemned to death unless you will give him sanctuary."

"Arthur of Ashlin, I grant you sanctuary here at St. Frideswide’s for a year and a day. If we cannot straighten this matter out by then, I shall grant you sanctuary for as long as it takes," the abbess said. "Now, go to the stables, my lad, where Sister Joseph is in charge. Tell her I said she is to house you and find work for you to do."

Arthur knelt before the abbess, and taking up the hem of her robe, kissed it. "I thank you, my lady abbess, for your mercy." Then he stood and left the hall.

"Oh, thank you, Reverend Mother! Arthur was my childhood playmate, and one of the first to greet me warmly on my return to Ashlin. Ida, his grandmother, was my nursemaid. I would not want to be the cause of his death…" She was sobbing now.

The abbess recognized that Elf was suffering from shock, but there were questions she had to ask. " I must know exactly what it is this man did to you, my daughter. Come, and sit with me," she said, leading the girl to a bench set against the wall. "Now, speak honestly to me, Eleanore de Montfort. Your immortal soul stands in peril if you lie to me. Do you understand, my daughter?"

"Yes, Reverend Mother," Elf replied, and she shuddered. "He grabbed me, and kissed me. He fondled my breast. Then he threw me to the floor of the shed, and exposed his male member to me. He was saying horrible things to me, about how I should like what he would do." She shuddered again, but swallowing hard as she relived the attack, she bravely continued on. "Then he laid his body on mine. I was screaming, and screaming, and thank God, Arthur came. He pulled my attacker from me, hitting him on the jaw. It was when he fell back that Saer de Bude’s head grazed the edge of the table.

"I saw the blood gush from the wound, and wanted to remain to aid him, but Arthur would not let me. We ran back to the manor, and Cedric, my steward, went back to the shed. My attacker was alive and moving. Cedric told him to remain where he was, and he would fetch help. In the meantime Ida gathered my belongings together, and Arthur and I fled here to St. Frideswide's," Elf concluded.

"Did your attacker’s male member touch your private parts, or penetrate you at any time, my daughter?" the abbess probed.

"No!
Never, Reverend Mother!" The shocked look on Elf’s face told the nun that the girl was telling the truth.

"Are you wearing the same clothing as you wore when you were accosted?" the abbess asked. She had to make certain, as painful as it was.

"All but my tunica and camisa," Elf said. "He tore those from me when he sought to fondle me." Her face was pale. "May I have a bath, Reverend Mother? I can yet smell that man’s body on me."

"Of course, my daughter, and you may bathe this night only without your camisa. Tell Sister Cuthbert I said so. Nay, I will tell her so myself." She arose from the bench. "Come, my poor Eleanore, let us go and find Sister Cuthbert, and get you settled safely."