The Winter Mantle (44 page)

'You have stolen my daughters from me,' she said, lowering her own voice to match the tone of his. 'And the lands that I have cared for since my husband's death. Perhaps it is God's way. Perhaps this is my penance for that day of heedless pride in the stableyard at Rouen. I will pray God to forgive my many sins, and I hope that I can find it in my heart to pray that he forgive you yours… for I am mortal, and I cannot.'

She did not have to push past Matilda and De Senlis, for they stood aside to let her go and neither spoke to call her back. Judith stumbled in the darkness of the corridor. Her cheeks were wet with the first tears she had shed since Waltheof's body had been borne to Crowland. If this was God's will then she did not know how she was going to reconcile herself. She desperately needed somewhere to go and lick her wounds.

Biting her lip, Matilda made to go after her mother, but Simon gripped her arm. 'No,' he said. 'Leave her. You have come to a parting of the ways and whatever you said now would only make things worse. Let her grieve awhile in peace. There will be time enough later to make things right between you.'

'Things have never been right between us,' Matilda said desolately. 'As my mother says, I am my father's daughter, and that alone is unforgivable in her eyes.'

'Then it is she who must change, not you.' He gave her arm a small shake to bring her attention fully to him. 'You are chatelaine of this place now. The care of its people falls to you.'

Meeting his gaze Matilda encountered a will as implacable as her mother's but differently channelled.

'I need you by my side, not just as a decoration or a seal to my rule, but as a true wife and helpmate.' He claimed her lips in a kiss that drew a collective gasp from the Countess's women.

Simon raised his head and glanced at them. 'Those of you who wish to follow your mistress are free to go with her,' he announced. 'Those who wish to remain may do so.' His arm around Matilda, he left them to their decisions and withdrew to the hall.

While Simon was speaking to his knights, Jude grabbed Matilda's arm. 'It is true then?' she whispered, her glance darting towards Simon.

Matilda's lips twitched. 'Is what true?' she teased.

'That you and he are married — is it binding?'

'As a piece of thrice woven braid. There will be no annulment.'

Jude lifted Matilda's hand to the growing light from the shutters to look at the ring.

'He tells me that it is Roman, and very rare.' Matilda's smile deepened.

Jude looked over her shoulder to make sure that Simon was not listening and gave her sister a little nudge. 'What was it like?'

'What was what like?'

Jude dug her in the ribs again. 'You know… Are the things that Sybille says true?'

Matilda giggled. 'I am not sure that it is decorous for me to tell you!' she declared. She cast her own gaze towards Simon and viewed him through modestly downswept lashes. 'But if you were to press me, I would say that Sybille was restrained.'

Jude's eyes sparkled with curiosity. 'Did it hurt?'

'Not beyond bearing,' Matilda said, and gave a small shiver, thinking that what had been almost beyond bearing was the pleasure and the alchemy between man and woman that changed everything in its wake. Gold was dross. Dross was gold. The burden of love was light as a feather and heavy as lead - if love it was, and not the glamour of the night dazzling in her eyes. She could not explain such things to her sister. Instead she smiled and squeezed Jude's hand.

'My heart is gladdened,' she said. 'I cannot pretend to be cast down when I am not… although I could wish that the circumstances were different.'

'You mean Mother?' Jude caught her full underlip in her teeth. 'I… I did not want to go with her,' she confessed. 'When Lord Simon said I was to stay, I felt glad… and then I felt guilty because I was glad.'

Matilda embraced her sister. 'I feel that way too; but if we had gone with her it would have been to no avail. Simon would have sent men after us before we had gone half a mile. Indeed, I doubt he would even have allowed us out of the gates.'

'Is that what you were thinking when you went to him?' There was a note of admiration and a tinge of envy in Jude's tone. 'That it was better to play by his rules than Mother's?'

Matilda looked down at her hands, and then at her new husband. Her heart swelled. 'No,' she said softly. 'I went to return his cloak… and it became my marriage bed.'

Northampton, November 1087

A cold winter rain slashed against the walls of the palace. It had been dark all day, for the shutters had been closed against the inclement weather and the only chinks of light came from angled windows high up near the roof beams of the hall.

In their private chamber Matilda approached the bed where Simon lay. Beneath his left leg was a linen cloth to protect the winter coverings of Norwegian furs. The cold, wet weather and his own restless energy had caused his old injury to trouble him. Not that he had admitted as much, but after two months of marriage Matilda was becoming slightly more adept at reading the language of his body. It was difficult, because he gave so little away. He was either good-humoured or impassive - as controlled as her mother, but without the coldness. She took the glimpses of his true self he yielded to her, but was unsatisfied and ravenous for more.

She did at least know that he abhorred being confined. He refused to stay abed longer than it took his body to rest in sleep, or to lie with her in the act of love and procreation. She was also discovering that the latter might as easily take place in a stable, under a tree in the woods, or in the arbour of her garden as in their chamber.

Today's vicious weather had confined them to quarters, though, and she had insisted that rubbing his leg with a soothing balm made from the herbs in the garden would give him ease.

'I ought to be out on the walls,' he said.

Matilda hiked up her skirts to climb on the bed, making sure that he got a glimpse of thigh above her gartered hose. 'Why?' she asked. 'No one else is. It is true that folk can work in the rain, but not when it comes down like arrows and is so cold it is almost ice. One day will make no difference.'

He gave an impatient grunt. 'But one day will become two, then three, then four. I promised the King that I would make all haste to secure this place with a keep and strong walls to protect the town. I want to give him a good report of the work's progress.'

'And so you shall, but not if you push yourself beyond your endurance and become too sick to make your answer.' Straddling him she took a dollop of balm onto her fingers and applied it to his leg. There was a misshapen lump where the broken edges of bone had fused together. She knew that he suffered more pain from the old injury than he was prepared to admit. Late in the day, if he had been particularly active, she would see the tension in the skin around his eyes and his gait would become progressively uneven and stilted. A comment that he should rest would draw forth the reply that he was not an invalid. If she pushed further, he would become quiet and self-contained, effectively shutting her out.

With firm pressure, she rubbed the balm into his leg. He had condescended to remove his hose, so she knew that while his conscience dictated that he should be elsewhere it was not strong enough to override other considerations. The aromatic tang of chamomile, meadowsweet and warm undertones of bay filled the chamber as she pressed and smoothed with long strokes of her thumbs. She felt his body relax beneath her ministrations. His lids grew heavy, but they did not close.

A fresh burst of rain spattered against the shutters like a handful of flung shingle. He pushed his hand beneath her skirt and stroked her thigh with a languid hand. Matilda gasped at his touch then gasped again as he quested further.

'I fear,' he murmured lazily, 'that in trying to ease me you have only made the situation worse.'

'I have?' The last word rose with Matilda's hips in response to what he was doing.

'Indeed, much worse.' Cupping her buttocks he pulled her up his body and at the same time raised his tunic. 'The stiffness has moved, and if you do not relieve it then I will go mad.'

She discovered that when removing his chausses he had removed his braies too, and that he was huge and hard and ready. He filled her with such heat and strength that she felt as if she were riding upon a burning brand. Her mother would have been horrified at the notion of fornicating in almost broad daylight, when anyone could have walked in on the scene, but Matilda cared not. It was not a holy day when the priests said that a couple must not join, and if it were a sin to take her pleasure above her husband she would confess later.

It did not take long, for both of them were fired by the piquancy of what they were doing. In moments, Matilda was shuddering in the throes of pleasure, her teeth clenched to muffle the cry that might bring Jude or Helisende hastening in upon them. Beneath her the tendons in Simon's neck stood out like whipcords. Seizing her hips, he lunged up into her body, and she felt the frantic throb of his release.

For some time there was no sound but the harshness of their mingled breathing. Then Matilda sat up, pushed loose strands of hair from her face, and giggled. 'Have I then saved your sanity?' she demanded, and rocked on him, enjoying the flickers of after-pleasure.

He chuckled and she felt the humour tremble through his body into hers. 'No, you have rendered me witless.' The rigidity of lust had departed his expression in exchange for a softening of tenderness. He ran his hands up the long bones of her thighs and stroked her skin gently.

Matilda shivered. 'I think it would take more than this to render you witless,' she murmured. 'Indeed, I am the one who is in danger of losing myself.'

He gave a shrug, conceding the point with a lascivious curl to his lips. 'More than in danger,' he said softly. His hands moved further, teasing, stroking, until she began to writhe beneath a new onslaught of sensations.

Matilda gasped incoherently and clutched at his tunic. Outside the weather lashed at the shutters, emphasising the fact that there was no escape, abetting the maelstrom between her and Simon. He watched her narrow-eyed and intent, holding her on a brink until she bared her teeth in frustration. Rolling over, he pushed her down on the bed, drew her legs around his hips and thrust into her, damming her scream of completion with his mouth until she went limp under him.

'Jesu!' Matilda half sobbed as he kissed the thundering pulse in her throat. 'I could die of this!'

'It would be glorious,' he admitted with a smile. His eyes were bright and opaque with lust-haze.

'Imagine if you had married my mother,' she said as she regained her breathing. It was a thought that visited her on odd occasions - usually ones like this. Judith had retired to her nunnery at Elstow and they seldom spoke of her, but her shadow lingered.

He caressed her braid and dipped his head to nip her throat where a love flush was rising in strawberry blotches. 'I do not dwell on it,' he said quietly, 'because I married you. I openly admit that from the moment I saw you in the garden at Northampton, I wanted you in my bed. I did not have the same reaction to your lady mother.'