“Towns also need good diary maids.”
“You would not object to my working?”
He shook his head. “I hardly care, as long as you are happy. Towns are different from manors and castles. In a town, a landless knight and a dairy maid may wed without much comment and rise together. And all are free there.”
He drew the strings of her cloak apart and pushed the rough cloth away from her shoulders. “You are free, Matilde. Our lord, our former lord, agreed the terms. You and your family are freed.” He dropped a kiss onto her throat. “Your land strips are also still yours, if you wish to hold them. You can decide what to do with them when we go back to visit your kindred.”
Freedom. She knew already, but hearing it from Gawain, from his full, lovely mouth, made the news complete. Joy erupted from her.
“Free!” She jumped up and danced on the spot, pulling Gawain to his feet and whirling with him. “Free, free.” Releasing him, she sped down the track, dipping and wheeling like a bird. “Free.” The top of her head felt to be rising and her lungs were so tight she could not gulp a full breath. No more forced work. No more fear of my family starving. No more bowing my head to a lord I secretly despise. Overwhelmed, she put her face in her hands and wept.
Gawain caught her, scooped an arm beneath her knees, and took her with him on his horse, riding away to freedom.
* * * *
The rest of the day was a blur. At times, Matilde slept. At times, she found herself chattering about Gawain’s horses, about making cheese, about seeing a town for the first time—all real, true things but when she heard her own wild voice, part of her was amazed.
“I talk like a boiling stewpot!” she exclaimed, when Gawain stopped briefly in the late afternoon to check the girths and luggage on the horses. “How can you stand it?”
He looked up from retying a pannier and grinned. “I lately swore that I would never gag you again, and I do not regret it. Talk away. I love to hear you.”
The sun rippled his brown hair and gilded his tan to a glorious bronze. For an instant, Matilde wondered if she had stepped into the land of faery. He said “love.”
Still in a daze, she felt Gawain touch her hand. “May I give you a ring, Matilde? As a sign of our marriage to come?”
Did he mean it when he said love? She covered his long, strong fingers with her palm. “I do not think in all my chattering that I agreed to marriage.” She smiled. “I would have remembered.”
“Enough nonsense!” He reached up and plastered a rough kiss on her mouth. “Take this ring.”
She glanced at the gleam he gripped between finger and thumb. It looked to be the remains of a battered coin, hammered into a half hoop. “How do I wear it?” she asked, torn between amusement and indignation.
“You do not,” came the smug response. “You slip it into your bodice and dream of the wedding ring I shall win, barter, or buy for you in Thorndyke town.”
“In that case…” She closed her fingers about the strange but worthy token and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. “I shall kiss you fully when you have shaved.”
He laughed. “You do know that by accepting my ring you accept my suit?”
She swallowed, forcing doubts away. Now he must declare himself. “And what is your suit, Sir Gawain? Please tell me more.” Please tell me you love me.
* * * *
Gawain stared at her. It was near to sunset, they had to reach the town before curfew or the town gates would be closed against them, and Matilde still wanted—what?
Surely she knows I love her?
She looked back at him, her eyes as dark as pools, her beautiful face as transfigured as a saint’s in heavenly rapture. She was a wall-painting and magic creature all in one. My unicorn, my woman-unicorn.
“God above, I love you!” he burst out, and received a stinging slap on his shoulder.
Matilde stood up in the stirrups, exactly as if she was the knight, not him. “Why did you not say earlier?” she demanded, fighting- angry as a dragon. “I love you, oaf, and you say nothing, and I have been waiting and wretched in the waiting!”
Before she could rear up any more, he snaked an arm about her middle and hauled her from the saddle. “Enough.” He drew her closer than his sword and kissed her. And if my beard scratches her, so be it. Unerringly, his hands found the small of her back, dipped lower, and slapped.
“I love you, Matilde.” He smacked her again. “You are mine, now and forever.”
She yelped and squirmed, but he had no mercy. “I love you with all my heart.” Smack! “You made me see others and listen to others and understand women, a little.” Smack! “You shall be my wife, agreed?”
His hand hovered, ready to strike.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Yes, what?”
She sighed and snuggled into his embrace. “Yes…husband.”
He tipped up her chin, marking her bright eyes and rosy face. “I want your solemn promise, Matilde.” She is a slippery little creature, who twists words like a farrier works a hot horseshoe, but I know she will keep her vow.
“I promise, Gawain. I do.”
Finally. He kissed her mouth, cheeks, and throat, his hands caressing her. “Good,” he said. He wanted to do more but forced himself to stop. I would not have us spend our first evening in Thorndyke outside the walls. “Now for town.”
* * * *
They reached Thorndyke just as the town’s curfew horn was sounding.
Chapter 8
Matilde turned the new, shiny ring on her finger. She and Gawain had married that morning. She had missed her mother, father, and sister at her wedding, but Gawain had promised they would go back to visit. She would return to her old home a wife, a free wife.
They had been two days in town. Gawain was now one of the under-sheriff’s men and they had a house, with a long, narrow plot of land. Land enough to keep a pig, if not yet a cow. Planning her garden, she grinned, then sat up nervously in bed when the door creaked. Gawain was still with the under-sheriff, a hard but fair man called Sir Walter, whom she sensed would unbend more as he knew her. Meanwhile, Walter’s buxom wife Lucy had been delighted to pass on cooking pots and bedding and, that evening, had even given her a flask of wine and a small roasted chicken, “For your wedding night.”
Our wedding night. When she was not nervously watching the sunset and waiting for the curfew horn, she was listening to the low rumble of carts and passing townsfolk outside. There were many folk here and far greater noise than she was used to, tending the cows, but she rather liked the bustle.
Gawain would come after curfew. He had returned after sunset yesterday evening, when Lucy and Walter had also stayed with them as chaperones, she and Lucy sleeping beside the fire and the men above in the attic. Tonight, Matilde moved about the two-story thatched cottage by herself. She tended the fire, shooed a town cat away from the cooked chicken and out through the window, then climbed the ladder to their attic bed to check that the mattress was full enough, the bedding spread and smooth.
There was a small chest by the bed. It contained Gawain’s clothes and a wooden comb that he had bought for her in town. He had promised her more gowns, more everything, but for the moment, she was well content, and excited.
I know roughly how men and women join, so it is foolish to be nervous. I know he will not hurt me. Telling herself that, Matilde plucked her new comb from the chest, put it between her teeth, and hurried downstairs. She wanted to be waiting by the hearth when Gawain came home.
* * * *
It was moonrise before she heard his fast, agile tread outside on the cobbled street. Curbing impatience, she poured a cup of ale and placed it beside his stool. He ducked through the door, grunted when he spotted her, and dropped off his sword belt.
“The day has been long today,” she said by way of greeting.
He nodded, slumping onto the stool, and drained his cup. Silently she placed her comb in her hair and stepped close to pour him another cup. �
�Aaah.” He half turned and buried his face in her apron. She stroked his curls.
“Tell me,” she said.
Slowly and increasingly more fluently, he drew out a tale of brawls. Apprentice lads, half killing themselves for foolish quarrels over dice and then needing to be stopped and calmed, three thieving, dangerous soldiers back from the crusades, whom he had fought all at once in an alleyway, disarming every warrior and setting two to flight. Then there had been a blacksmith who had gone wild with a hammer, whom he had been forced to cut down before the man slew someone. Finally, most piteously, a child had been hurt by a drunken mother. Gawain had been forced to restrain the mother and send her to the town prison.
“A hard day,” Matilde said, cradling his head and longing to ease his pain. But he speaks of it now, and to me, so that is good. It means we understand each other.
“I have seen better,” he admitted, then shook himself. “And this morning started so well.” He interlaced his fingers in hers and admired her ring. “And you?”
“Right from this morning the day has been a blessing for me,” Matilde said. And then she told him of sweeping and cleaning in their cottage and hoeing garden greens and planting, of women neighbors greeted and well-wished, of the choristers she had heard practicing in the largest town church, of the finches she had spotted in their boundary hedge. “We have supper, too,” she finished, and pointed to the chicken and salad greens and wine set on their table.
His smile came then, wide and generous. “You are good for me, wife. And there will be other, better days. I do not regret the change in my life. Sir Walter is pleased with me. For all its affrays, this is a town that grows in strength and influence. I can rise here.”
“We are good for each other,” she answered and, catching his unspoken question, added, “I do not regret the change, either.”
“The house is good?” he asked, clearly still anxious. “I know little of houses. Castles and tents at melees and tourneys are what I know.”
She ruffled his hair. “The house is sound. Sir Walter would not dare give you less, and the garden plot is very fine. I shall have space for magic and physic plants.”
“For cordial-making and such, like Lady Petronilla,” he said quickly.
“Yes, you are right,” she replied, marveling again at her change in circumstances. Ladies make cordials and now, so shall I. Another thought struck her. Since I am married to Gawain, am I now a lady? Swiftly, she dismissed the question. We love each other. That is more than enough.
“I shall look forward to tasting all that you make, especially your ale,” Gawain said loyally now, returning her to the present.
They fell silent, looking at each other, both a little shy, Matilde realized.
“Shall we eat?” Gawain asked.
* * * *
Our wedding night. Gawain poured his wife another cup of wine. Their morning wedding had been a dream, the day between a nightmare, this evening a sweet delight. She refreshes me. We restore each other. It was a pleasing thought and he knew it would be better yet…
Sitting beside him by the fire, leaning against his legs, Matilde took a long drink. In spite of the fresh, tasty salad and juicy roast chicken, she had eaten very sparingly and not, he suspected, by choice. Something is tugging at her, inside. He knew she was working up to say something by the ruddy glow on the back of her neck.
“All has ended well, has it not?” Twirling a lock of her long hair anxiously in her fingers, she shifted sideways to look at him.
He watched the play of firelight shadowing beautifully on her face and almost forgot to answer. “It has.”
“I have a confession to make.” Scarlet in the face now, Matilde left off fiddling with her air and leaned up on her knees. “Last week…I could not bear to wait, knowing my fate and the fate of my kin were both being decided at the castle. I had to know what was happening. So I…I left the old church and hurried back myself.”
“I know,” Gawain replied, enjoying the blank stare of discomfiture that crossed his wife’s features. “Or rather, I suspected. You were the maid scrubbing the floor outside the solar, were you not?”
“You did see me!”
“I saw, but I could not quite believe my eyes. I told myself it was another maid.”
“Did you hear me, too?”
“You were the one who made the door creak?”
She nodded, her mouth trembling as she rushed her confession. “I felt certain you must hear me then, but I was desperate to know. Was that why you cracked your knuckles and asked Lady Petronilla not to change the subject?”
Of course Matilde will remember, every sound, every word. “I suspected,” he admitted slowly, “and thought it best to be safe than sorry. It seemed a good enough diversion.”
Gawain shook his head. “Afterwards, I convinced myself it could not be you. I rode from the castle believing it could not be you, then was staggered when I found you in the fields, hurrying back to the old church.” As he thought of it again, anger rustled through his veins. He tugged lightly on her gown. “That was a sly change of clothes.”
“This gown is my sister’s.”
Fighting a haze of temper, Gawain draped an arm about his blushing bride’s slender middle. “And now you decided you would tell me?”
Matilde wisely hid her expression behind her cup as she drained her wine and made no answer.
“That was a great risk, Matilde,” he scolded.
“I had to know!”
“You did not trust me to do well by you and yours?” Sharp as any lance, that hurt overwhelmed his building anger and threatened to pierce him through. It was instantly deflected as Matilde cast herself into his arms, smothering him with kisses.
“No, no,” she was exclaiming. “I trusted you, trust you, Gawain, but I had to know.”
Exasperated, he caught her chin in his hand and stared into her stormy gray eyes. “It is well, is it not, that I understand that need in you? And that you were able to slip in and out of the castle in safety?”
He lightly tapped her face with his fingers. “I admit that when I spotted you wrestling with an imaginary stain on the floor outside the solar, my breath and heartbeat almost failed within me.” Worse, sheer terror almost unmanned me as I dreaded what might befall you, if discovered. I had to convince myself it was not you in order to confront our former lord and lady. But you do not need to learn that, tonight or ever. “Do not do anything like that again, Matilde.”
She dipped her head but said nothing.
Reining himself in, he stretched his arms above his head. “Why tell me at all? Did you feel guilty?”
Her rapid breathing seemed to fill the cottage. She said nothing, but he was watching closely and spotted the tiny, imperceptible nod of her head.
“You thought I should know?”
“Yes, and understand.”
“That you are more curious than a cat? I do, Matilde.” He stretched a little further. “I do understand that need to know of yours,” he went on, “but still I wonder at your sense sometimes.”
“God is our judge,” she said quickly, clearly sensing where he might be heading and seeking to divert him. Not this time, Matilde. Since we met and I grew to know you, I am better at curbing my rage, but this is a matter not of anger, but of your safety.
“But I am your husband.” He took the cup from her trembling fingers. “It is my duty to instruct you. And to keep you safe, in spite of yourself.”
Giving her no time to argue, he pointed to the ladder. “I will see all is secure here. You go up to our bed and wait for me.”
* * * *
Naked in bed, Matilde squirmed from side to side, starting each time she heard Gawain shifting downstairs. Torn between fear and excitement, she berated herself for confessing, even as she realized that they had to begin their marriage with total honesty.
I did it and he now knows, rather than suspects, and understands why I did it. At least, I hope he does…
The ladder cre
aked as Gawain climbed up and she pulled the sheet up to her nose. He sat on the edge of the mattress, a dark shadow, smelling of salt and musk. She saw his eyes and shivered.
“Turn over,” he said softly.
She did so, her mouth drying. Slowly, he drew the sheet down about her ankles, uncovering her nude body. Matilde buried her face in the pillows. Everyone slept naked in bed but this, where Gawain was looking at her and making her wait, was new. She had never felt more vulnerable, more exposed.
She flinched as he touched her, resting his hand on her. His palm felt warm on her haunches, but very firm. He stepped onto the bed and in another toe-curling moment, she realized he, too, was naked as he settled beside her. His chest hairs tickled her back as he drew closer, hovering over her.
“Not so defiant?” he murmured, nipping the lobe of her ear between his teeth. The frisson of sensation raced from her scalp to her heels. His hand remained on her nether curves.
“No,” she whispered into the pillow.
“Do you deserve chastisement for putting yourself in danger?” He drummed his fingers on one exposed cheek. “For listening at doors? For asking me to carve a unicorn horn?” Smartly, lightly, he rippled his fingers on the other cheek. Stars exploded behind her tightly closed eyes.
She did not try to evade his questions but answered truthfully, “Yes, if I hurt you.” She sensed him smile.
“Good answer. Here and now?”
Matilde swallowed. Why was he making her wait? Why could he not just get it over with? “Not this way, please,” she begged. “Over you.” She felt a cool rush of air gush along her back as he shifted.
“You, over my knee? Why, Matilde?”
She should have been humiliated. She burned with embarrassment, but did not feel shame, rather a curious acceptance. “It is closer,” she said simply. “We are closer.”
“Up with you.” Lifting her hips, her new husband drew her partway from the mattress and over his thighs, her head still cradled on the pillow and her haunches raised. A spanking position. She trembled, aware of a slippery, sweet itch in her loins. I cannot want this, can I?
The Virgin, the Knight, and the Unicorn (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 8
