The Temptation (The Medieval Knights Series) (36 page)

Hugh got out of bed, as naked as when he had climbed into it, and bent to put more logs on the fire. The room was as cold as a frozen pond but without the beauty.

"Because this bed is occupied," he said.

"There is room," Elsbeth said.

"Aye, I am small. You said it yourself," Denise added.

This was getting him nowhere; two females were intent on fighting him for the right to stay in his bed. As to that, in other circumstances, with other women... Hugh shook himself out of that dream.

"What awoke you?" he said instead, climbing back into bed.

"I do not know," Denise said, burying her face against Elsbeth's side. "Something bad."

"Something frightened her," Elsbeth said.

"What?" Hugh asked. "You are in the safety of the tower. What can befall you here?"

Elsbeth spoke before Denise could answer. "What does it matter? The night holds its own terrors, and fear does not know to stay away from strong towers. She should stay with us."

"All night?" Hugh said.

"Of course, all night. Why should she not?"

"Aye, why should I not?" Denise said, turning from Elsbeth to look up at him, the hurt on her face readable.

Why should she not? Elsbeth lay in his bed, cloaked in blood, fear, and now the arms of a child. Even with Denise gone, he would not take her. He could not, not as she was; 'twould be a betrayal of the trust he wanted from her.

Let Denise stay. Nothing of import was going to happen in this bed tonight. It did not take a great blazing fire to see that truth.

"Stay, then," he said to them both, and when Denise flung her arms around his neck, he grumbled, "but keep your cold feet to yourself."

* * *

Raymond found them the next dawning tangled upon themselves, arms and legs entwined, Denise's head on Elsbeth's breast, her feet tucked between Hugh's calves. Under all lay Elsbeth's hair, coiled and trapped beneath three bodies. Hugh was awake. He had been awake since the hour before dawn, thinking, considering, wondering.

His head was pounding.

Raymond came in quietly, as was his way, looked at the bodies on the bed, looked at Hugh and raised his brows in question. Hugh shook his head, rolling his eyes, and began the slow work of disentangling himself from the girls. They slept on as he eased from the bed and dressed himself.

When Hugh and Raymond were clear of the chamber, with the door closed softly behind them, Raymond spoke as they descended the stair to the hall below. All was quiet and empty at this hour, but that was but a momentary respite.

"Why was
she
with you?"

Hugh looked over at his squire and cocked an eyebrow.

"She? You mean Denise?"

"Aye," Raymond said tersely.

"She was afeared. Some mishap, some danger, in the night. It was not
you
, was it? You did not torment her, seeking some revenge against her whilst she slept?" Hugh asked half seriously.

"I? Nay, I would not waste a moment on that chit of a girl," Raymond said.

"Not even for torment?"

"My lord, I am no child—"

"I am pleased to hear my squire is no child, though he can be baited like one," Hugh said softly, making his point "Now, what happened last night? Was anything amiss in the hall?"

"Nay, my lord," Raymond said, chastened. "I heard nothing amiss throughout the night."

"And when did you retire?"

"Past Nocturn. All was quiet. Only Lord Gautier was still about, and he in his cups most deeply."

"Not unusual for Lord Gautier," Hugh said. "And not unusual considering the loss he has sustained. A man often finds solace in wine when God deals him a blow."

"Aye, my lord, though..."

"Aye?"

"Though he did not speak of his wife. He spoke of you and of Elsbeth. He insulted you, my lord. He wonders if it is in you to consummate this marriage."

Hugh let out a breath and then smiled crookedly as he considered Raymond's face. "Did he? And did he also insult you, Raymond? Did he wonder if we share more than the bonds of duty?"

Raymond's blue eyes burned hot as he answered. "Aye, my lord. He did."

Hugh chuckled. "And what did you answer?"

"I answered only that you would do all you have vowed to do."

"Well done, Raymond. Well done."

And so Gautier ranted on, insulting him, his squire, his very manhood. And what of Elsbeth? She who bled in her woman's time had her own father prodding him to breach her through her blood and naming him a sinner most venal because she was not yet breached. What manner of man did that, and to his own kin?

* * *

"There is blood in the bed, Elsbeth."

Elsbeth woke with a start and the beginnings of a curse on her lips. She stifled the curse in time, but the blood from her sodden wrappings bled onto the linen sheet of her bed.

She was not a woman given to cursing. But being in her father's household seemed to have an ill effect on her. She was also not a woman given to sleeping so soundly. She could blame that on having a husband who was wont to talk and talk through the night, leaving her no chance to rest.

Aye, most of the problems she faced could neatly be placed at the feet of men.

She jumped up and waddled to the bucket. It was clean and empty of soiled linen. She had Hugh to thank for that, she supposed. Well, it was the least he could do since he tormented her at every opportunity. She hurriedly unwrapped herself, then began the tedious process of binding herself anew.

She still bled, though more hesitantly now. Still, the way to her was barred for the time. She had only hours now to wrest herself free of Hugh; her reprieve would not last much longer. Only hours, yet she could not find the urgency required within herself.

She was becoming comfortable as his wife. That was the stark truth of it. He was possessed of a firm and solid tenderness that burrowed into her heart with more force than passion ever could. Ardeth had taught her about passion, but of tenderness she had known no words. In Ardeth's life there had been no lessons in tenderness, and so her daughter stood weaponless in this unexpected battle with her husband.

She was half in love with him.

He could have taken her; knowing her father, she knew Hugh had been urged to take her many times in the past days. And he had not. He had not. He had honored her and not forced himself against her will and her blood.

But when her blood was stopped and her will was hanging by a thread?

Then he would take her. What would she do then, when all defense was stripped from her?

What could she do but pray?

"You are in flux?" Denise asked, buried within the blankets except for her eyes and nose.

"Aye. You have good eyes about you, Denise. I am in flux," she said with just the smallest bite of sarcasm.

She had not bled in her bed in an age. She had learned the lesson of light sleeping years ago.

"Does it hurt?"

"Nay, it does not hurt. Be not afeared of that," she said, her wrapping done.

"I am not afeared," Denise said. "I only wonder." She was silent, watching Elsbeth look through her trunk for a bliaut. Then she said, "Does it hurt when Lord Hugh... pokes you?"

Elsbeth slowly straightened from her trunk, a deep rusty red bliaut in her hands, and turned to look at the girl.

"Pokes me? That is an... unpleasant word. Where did you bear it?"

"From Walter," Denise said.

"Walter Miller?" Elsbeth asked. "Why would Walter Miller speak to you of such? He speaks out of place. You stay away from the village, stay inside the gates, keeping to your prayers, Denise."

"With Father Godfrey? I do not like him very much," Denise said.

"He is our priest, Denise," Elsbeth said. "He deserves our respect, our reverence."

"I still do not like him. His breath is sour and he stands too close."

"Denise," Elsbeth said, "this is not proper."

Denise shrugged and buried her face in Hugh's pillow.

"I learned another word you will not think is proper," Denise said into the pillow.

"Oh?"

"'Sticks you.' I think it must hurt when a man sticks you," Denise said, pulling the blankets up over her head, her body a small lump in the center of the bed.

Elsbeth slipped on a white linen chemise and then pulled on a wine red pelisse, lacing it up slowly as she considered what to say. Over all she slipped on the rust red bliaut and fastened a golden girdle about her hips with absentminded attention. This was not a conversation she wanted to have; such talk was very discomforting. She had no answer to give Denise, and she would not have wanted to give her the answer if she had one. Odd questions and unwelcome in one so young.

"What makes you ask?" she said, delaying.

"I am only... curious," Denise said from beneath the blankets.

Elsbeth sat on the bed, lifting her bare feet from the cold floor, and pulled back the covers.

"Why are you curious?"

"Because... because... it will happen to me one day."

"That is true, but not for many days."

"I suppose. But... it will hurt and... I will bleed."

This was most definitely a conversation she did not want to have.

Elsbeth sighed and lay down on the bed, laying Denise on her chest and wrapping her arms about her, holding her against all knowledge and fear of pain. As if she could.

"But not for long," Elsbeth said, hoping it was the truth. "And not very much."

Denise lay quietly, her breath a thin echo of Elsbeth's own. After a time, she whispered into the cold air, "What about... the blood?"

"It is not very much blood," Elsbeth said, repeating what Isabel had told her and praying it was the truth. "And it is only for the one time. The first time."

"But still, there is blood," Denise said. "I do not want to bleed."

Aye, and blood every month and blood upon childbirth and blood in dying. But there was no need to say such things to such a small girl. Those truths would come in their own time, a time far from now. Ardeth had held her just so, whispering the same comforts, the same hopes, in this very bed. And look where she had landed.

"Aye, there is blood," Elsbeth said, stroking Denise's flaxen hair, so soft under her hand, so smooth and cool. "And no one wants to bleed, and yet we must and do. Try not to think of it."

They were quiet after that. A cold wind from the east whistled past the wind hole and a stray gull was visible, white against the building clouds of gray. A silent and solitary traveler, far from the sea, yet riding the sky contentedly, unconcerned that another storm was building. Joyous in flight, untroubled by future storms; there was a lesson to be learned in that, most surely.

Yet was there not, in this bed, in this hour, trouble enough?

What was it in Denise's words that made Elsbeth tremble, her thoughts cast back to dark and shadowed memory? This talk of blood—that was what had set her back upon a path she had long forgotten, running hard from it as she had then. Even now, that path was shrouded and dark; she could not see what terrors lay at the end of it, and she did not want the gift of sight. That path was better left dark. Better left forgotten.

Except for the girl in her arms, who suddenly wanted to know about pain and blood and men who poked their fleshy sticks at her.

In the dark.

Always in the dark.

Elsbeth turned her face to the wind hole and filled her eyes with the light of day, gray though it was, damp and cold. Still, it was day and there were no shadows in the day. There were Matins and Prime and the Morrow Mass and then Terce and Sext and None and Vespers; prayers and chants in the solemn sanctity of the church to keep all shadows in their place. Compline was last, the last service before the dark, long hours of sleep. She stayed at Compline longest. She liked Compline least because then she had to leave and face the darkness on her own. Hours upon hours until Nocturn. Hours upon hours alone, fighting shadows.

Fighting fear.

"What made you fear last night?" she asked, holding the girl tight against her, molding her thin bones into a warm cocoon of safety. "Why did you run to us?"

Denise held her breath for a moment and then said softly, "I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

Denise said nothing for a long time. The gull had gone. The wind had died, the clouds held in their place by an unseen hand. All the world was still.

"Just afraid," she said.

Elsbeth stroked her hair and did not press. Some things were best left in the dark.

* * *

Gautier awoke with a throbbing head and a dry mouth. At least, he imagined he was awake. All was dark. It took him a moment to realize that all was dark because his eyes were closed. He cracked open his eyes with some difficulty and was instantly blinded by the dim, gray light of his hall on a dim, gray day.

Some things were best left in the dark. And he was one of them.

He closed his eyes again and took a shallow, sour breath. What he needed was ale. Ale would open his eyes and moisten his mouth. Ale would make all look and feel as it should; not this hard and bright awakening. Tonight he would sleep in his bed, leaving all memories of Emma in the grave, where they belonged.

That issue settled in his mind, he lifted his head from the table and looked about him. There was nothing much to see. It was uncommonly quiet. Another storm was building to soak all in rain and mud. With Hugh of the Bathwater in residence, rain provided rare amusement, watching him skip to avoid puddles.

He was not worthy of the rank of knight. Which suited Gautier very well. Hugh was the perfect man for Elsbeth. Between the two of them, they could open an abbey, their bodies barred from bonding by their very vows. That would suit Elsbeth well enough, he knew. She was a woman to despise the touch of a man. He knew that very well, though she would submit. She knew the value and the necessity of submission. It was in her submission that Hugh placed his trust, and in his pretty face. It was in her submission that Gautier placed his trust, though the untimely arrival of her flux confused his plans. Still, there were other plans that could be put into play to see his will accomplished.