The Marsh King's Daughter (22 page)
'I'm sure there was,' Nicholas murmured uncomfortably.
She shot down his platitude with a single look. 'You find it hard to believe in a whore with a heart,' she said contemptuously. 'Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should go and bury mine deep where no one will ever find and probe its soft parts again. I have a living to earn, after all.'
In a swish of skirts and a waft of musky perfume she hurried from the chapel. Nicholas jumped up and stumbled after her, catching her clumsily by the arm and turning her to face him. 'What I find hard are the words to say, especially when two quarts of Gascon wine are hampering my tongue,' he said ruefully. 'What was between you and Edwin le Grun is your concern. I was not judging you. I am sorry he is dead and I can see that you grieve for him.'
The stiffness of fury left her body and her face crumpled. 'I am sorry too, for being so swift to anger.' She swayed against him and he tightened his hold, thinking that she was going to faint and hoping that she would not because his own balance was precarious.
A group of revellers straggled past in search of a garderobe and lewd shouts of encouragement were tossed at Nicholas, together with several lucrative offers to his companion.
'You see,' she said with a weary gesture, 'there is no shortage of takers.'
Nicholas furrowed his brow. The image of her being used by those drunkards was distasteful, but he was aware of being a drunkard himself, his thoughts blurred and slow. 'Do you need a safe haven to spend the night?'
She looked up at him. 'Are you offering?'
'Just a place to sleep,' he said quickly, 'nothing more . . . I mean it,' he added swiftly. 'No ties.'
She chewed her lower lip and studied him, considering. Even slowed by drink, his body began to react to the pressure of hers. Heat pulsed into his groin. He shifted so that her weight was taken on his hip, for he did not want her to think that he was saying one thing and intending another.
'No ties,' she repeated with a slight narrowing of her eyelids, and then with a determined sniff drew herself upright. 'Where did you have in mind?'
By the time they reached the Pandora, the drink had taken full hold of Nicholas's senses. It was all he could do to walk up the gangplank without falling into the water. He gestured to the timber castle built over the stern rudder and told his companion to bed down there.
'Blankets in the hold,' he said carefully, waving a hand vaguely midships.
She smiled. 'I'll find them.'
He nodded and started towards the other castle at the cog's prow, but suddenly stopped and turned, almost overbalancing. 'I don't even know your name,' he said.
Her smile deepened, causing two dimples to appear either side of her luscious mouth. 'I doubt that you'll remember in the morning, but it's Magdalene.'
'Magdalene,' he repeated, capturing the syllables before they could vanish into the wine haze. 'Magdalene.'
He slept heavily. During the night he was visited by a shockingly vivid erotic dream. Strong fingers stroked his body, smoothing over his ribs and abdomen, rubbing his thighs, gently kneading his penis until he writhed and groaned. Then the fingers were replaced by a clinging sheath that sucked and squeezed until there was nothing but pure, fierce sensation. His hands were taken in other hands and guided to large, firm breasts, the skin like cool silk. The night breeze had stiffened the nipples into firm buds.
'Jesu God!' he gasped and opened his eyes.
Fingertips pressed gently against his lips. 'Lie still,' Magdalene murmured. 'This is my gift to you.'
'I don't—'
'You do,' she interrupted, rising and falling smoothly upon him, until the pleasure was too much and he arched like a taut bow, and then loosed himself, hurtling through ecstasy and into oblivion.
In the morning he woke to a splitting head, a dry mouth and the general malaise that came from a quart too much of Gascon wine. Gingerly he sat up and squinted at the sun which was well above the horizon. A huge herring gull sat on the Pandora's mast and fixed him with a cold, yellow stare. There was something he had to remember. He rubbed his aching forehead and groaned.
Then he saw her crossing the deck towards him, a cup in her hand. She was fully dressed, her wimple neatly pinned.
'It is only water,' she said, 'but I have heard it is as good a remedy as any for a thick head.'
He took it from her with a bleary word of thanks.
'Well,' she said with a faint smile, 'do you know my name?'
He drank deeply, replenishing his body, then looked at her across the cup. She had given him the prompt and from somewhere he delivered the answer. 'Magdalene,' he said wryly, 'which is a heroic feat, since I am not sure that I know my own.'
She laughed, but not unkindly. 'You were well gilded last night.'
He nodded agreement and finished the water. 'Indeed I was, and I have the head to prove it this morning.' He squinted at her through light-sensitive eyes. 'Your name does not appear to be the only thing I remember from last night,' he said slowly. 'Was I dreaming that you came to me, or was it real?'
A delicate flush spread from her throat and mantled her face. 'It was whatever you wanted it to be,' she said.
Nicholas gazed down into the empty cup, his eyes tracing the spots of water on the glazed inner surface. He tried to think beyond the miasma in his skull. With Edwin dead, she was in need of a new protector and he could see himself being fitted for the role. Last night he had been given a taste of the goods on offer.
He looked up to find her watching him. 'I hope that it was real,' he said carefully. 'I seem to recall you saying something about a gift, so I will not insult you by offering payment.'
'You would have it flung back in your face if you did.'
He did not know what else to say, how to refuse without rejecting her outright, or seeming churlish. 'I am glad that you stayed,' he said at last, 'and I would enjoy your company again, but I am not Edwin, and I have no intention of offering you his kind of bargain.'
Her hands went to her hips. 'Have I asked it?'
'It is best to know the ground on which we stand.'
'You want me, but you don't. Fair enough.' She turned away.
'Oh, for Christ's sake, Magdalene.' His raised voice made his head pound with sickening force.
She looked at him over her shoulder, but instead of the petulance he expected, he was met by a wry smile and a coquettish shrug of one shoulder. 'Why shout? I said fair enough; I meant fair enough. Thank you for my night's lodging. Should you want me - for any reason' - here she raised a delicate eyebrow - 'I will be at The Red Boar -although next time it won't be a gift.'
And with that, she left. Nicholas curbed the impulse to go after her. She was right. He wanted her and he didn't. This way he maintained the balance without making a commitment and she was free to seek elsewhere.
Footsteps sounded on the deck and he looked up to see Stephen Trabe approaching.
'I just met with your guest,' Trabe said with a gesture towards the gangplank, a smile in his eyes which were remarkably bright given the amount of carousing the previous night. 'Small wonder you left the celebrations early. I would have done too.'
Carefully, Nicholas eased to his feet. He could feel the hair rising on his nape. 'What can I do for you, Master Trabe?'
The sailor's teeth flashed in a piratical grin. 'Nothing for the moment. I was on my way to my own ship and I came to thank you for your part in Eustace's capture.'
Nicholas turned away to don his tunic. 'There is no need,' he said flatly and then, because it was festering within him and could not be contained, added, 'If I had known that you were going to execute him without justice, I would never have cast my grapnel ropes.'
'He got justice,' Trabe said. 'Short, brutal, and what he deserved.' He drew breath as if to say something more, a speculative expression in his eyes, but then thought the better of it and turned away. 'Every ship's master on
As his footsteps retreated, Nicholas let out his breath on a shudder. As far as he could tell, there was small difference between Eustace the Monk and Stephen Trabe. Both were pirates with morals on the wrong side of damnation. The King was dead, long live the King.
The education that Miriel sought following her wedding night came from a quite unexpected quarter.
Seated on a bench outside the weaving shed, Alice Leen rested her stick against the wall and allowed the warm morning sun to seep into her old bones. Miriel brought her wine and politely enquired if she was settling into life at the priory.
'Too quiet,' Alice snapped. 'And too many monks.'
Miriel took the response in her stride. If Alice had not grumbled, she would have thought the woman seriously ill.
She wondered rather grimly how long this particular visit was going to last.
'And you, my girl, how is marriage suiting you?'
'Well enough,' Miriel replied warily.
Alice
made a rude sound and drank her wine with the speed and expertise of a common soldier rather than a frail old lady. 'Just you wait until you've got a brat at your feet and another in your belly. It'll not suit you so well then.'
Miriel struggled with the urge to slap her tormentor. Shrewd as ever, the hag had hit the target with precision. She drank her own wine and remained on her feet, hoping that Alice would take the hint and leave.
Alice
did no such thing. 'I know what it's like, my girl. Wouldn't wish it on anyone.' She looked pointedly at the flagon and, when Miriel pretended ignorance, eased to her feet and hobbled to refill her own cup.
'How would you know?' Miriel demanded. 'You don't have any children.'
Alice
sucked her teeth. 'Not now, but I bore 'em when I was a young un like you. Four, one after the other, less than a year atween each. Nigh on killed me.' She limped back to the bench and carefully let herself down, her dark eyes moist and fierce. 'Before you ask, they all died. One at birth, two o' the spotted fever and one of a splinter that festered.'
'I'm sorry.' Miriel suddenly felt small and mean for her brusqueness towards Alice.
'What's to be sorry for? It's my grief, not yourn.' She swallowed her second cup of wine and a pink tinge began to lift her sallow complexion. 'You never get over it, losing them,' she said. 'You bear them in pain and that pain increases like a knife in your heart as they grow. And when they die untimely, the knife stays in and you bleed forever.' There was anger in her voice, burning and bitter.
A lump tightened in Miriel's throat. She would have put her arms around Alice's thin shoulders but knew that she would be immediately shrugged off.
'I'll not have you pitying me,' Alice snapped. 'Couldn't stand it then, and I won't stand it now.'
'I wasn't pitying you,' Miriel lied in a choked voice. 'I . . . I was hoping that it never happens to me.'
'Oh, it'll happen,' Alice said savagely. 'Likely you're with child even now.'
Despite the knowledge that it was impossible, Miriel pressed her hand to her flat belly in panic. 'I'm not,' she said, 'and I know I am not. My flux came two days ago.'
'You might escape once or twice, but you always catch in the end - unless you're barren, or you can keep your husband's seed from your womb.'
Miriel looked sharply at Alice. 'Do you know the method?' Her tone was eager with hope. She had not relished the thought of seeking contraceptive advice from the town whores or a wise woman of dubious repute, and it was hardly something that she could ask the likes of Eva Bridlesmith.
Bleak amusement sparkled in Alice's eyes. 'I know several. Decided after bearing and burying four that the candle wasn't worth the game.' She held out her cup. 'Might as well fill it up, wench. I'll be here a while yet and I can see you're not so keen to be rid o' me now.'
