Cruel Enchantment

by Janine Ashbless

  Annette stopped to wait her turn. She turned her face away from the smell of the frightened sheep and wiped the dust they were kicking up from her eyes. The gateway was filled with people arguing, grumbling and trying to retain their companions. A party of masons were causing further confusion by carrying out repairs on the side of the main arch, their scaffolding wobbling under their movements. Annette watched listlessly for a while then returned to looking at the ground. There was a large wooden crucifix hung around her neck, with which she fiddled idly with one hand. The cross nestled exactly between her breasts.

  A hand fell on her arm; she looked up with some surprise. A young man was touching her; thin-featured, ill-shaven, with clothes that looked fine and fashionable but which were stained and shabby. His breath smelled of wine. He had clearly seen her from one of the taverns nearby where youths such as he sat and gambled. This one looked as though he had been gaming for days. Annette stared at him blankly as he bestowed a smile upon her.

  ‘My lady,’ he began rapidly, ‘I have no idea what it is that you are repenting of, but I do sincerely hope that you enjoyed it enormously at the time. And, if I might say so, any partner that you may have had in your sins was a lucky man, and if I were he I would not repent the action if the Devil himself were upon my heels. You look somewhat tired and thirsty, if I might be so bold – I hear that repentance is hard work; perhaps you would like to join myself and my companions for a refreshing drink. It isn’t far – just over here – you can recommence your journey at any point.’ By now he had one hand on her arm and the other around her shoulders, tugging her away from the road. Annette stared up into his bloodshot eyes and fumbled for words. She managed to whisper, ‘No’, but it had little effect.

  ‘You have beautiful hair, if you’ll forgive me for saying so – I thank the angels that your husband chose to spare you it. By God, I hope it was adultery, woman – you would be wasted on anything less.’

  A knot had gathered in Annette’s breast; a tight knot of rage. It was like a white flame lighting up the darkness inside her. She bit down on her lip, starting to tremble inwardly. She knew she was going to strike that stupid leer off his face. She was going to smash every bone in those groping hands that were round her waist now. He could see nothing of what was happening in her, could only see some confused whey-faced girl with eyes dark as bruises staring at him in confusion. The rage swelled in her like a choking wave. She was going to kill this man.

  He was yanked away from her. Another man had appeared behind him; an older man dressed in scholar’s robes who pulled him roughly away from Annette.

  ‘Don’t even think about touching a pilgrim, boy,’ the newcomer said. He was old, his neat beard and what remained of his hair, silver, his handsome face lined, no match for a drunk young man – but his eyes were as fierce and commanding as a hawk’s.

  The youth gawked in surprise, put a hand to his belt for a knife or a sword that was thankfully not there and sneered, ‘And who the hell are you, old man?’

  ‘I am Bernard de Montauban, the Archbishop’s personal secretary,’ the other shot back, his voice not the voice of an old man at all. ‘Do you want me to call in those soldiers or do you want to go back to your cups, you sot?’

  The youth started, laughed, hesitated, spat on the ground and then turned his back and walked away. Annette looked wordlessly at the older man.

  His eyes were grave. ‘Calm down,’ he said firmly. ‘This is not the time to lose your temper.’ So saying, he took her arm and led her towards the gate. Strangely, Annette did not find his grasp anything but reassuring. ‘You’re going to the shrine of St Veronique, aren’t you?’ Bernard said. ‘Come on; I’ll walk you through the gate.’

  He was as good as his word, leading her past soldiers who simply saluted and pushed other people aside to make a path for them. Annette felt her head spin. The knot of anger in her throat had died away again as quickly as it had appeared, but it left her feeling twitchily awake, as if she had been kicked from a comfortable doze.

  ‘Follow the road north,’ Bernard said, pointing up the dusty track. ‘Turn off when you see the Châtelaine’s house.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Annette murmured. He smiled briefly, took up her hand and kissed the back of it formally – then turned the hand over and kissed the palm too. His lips were warm and dry. Annette felt a shiver mount her spine.

  Bernard stepped back, said, ‘St Veronique be with you, child,’ and then disappeared back into the crowd milling under the city walls.

  Annette turned slowly round, taking in the scene about her with something like interest for the first time. She had never been beyond the city walls without a chaperon, and rarely at all if it came to that. She was a merchant’s wife, not of that class of people whose women went hawking and hunting for amusement. She knew the countryside only as an interim between the secure walls of different cities, a place from which produce was brought and in which payloads were lost to bandits or weather. She had never considered a journey as an active thing, an event in which she was involved. She had never considered the weather as more than an inconvenience to her person. Now she looked at the hazed summer sky in apprehension. It was going to be very hot on the road and, worse than that, there was a humid tension in the air. To the southwest, the direction of the mountains, a bank of blue thunderclouds heaved and threatened. Annette hoped it would rain – otherwise the walk would be torture.

  Under the brassy morning light the land beyond the city stretched away up the broad river valley, a golden land of hay-meadows and oat fields, striped with the brighter green of the pastures near the Argens where cows grazed, and stippled by the sombre shades of the cork-oak groves. There was little cover. The great strips of the fields were not broken by shelterbelts of trees; land here near the city was too valuable. Dark fingers of cypress and poplar marked the lines of the roads; these and a pall of yellow dust. Annette took the first few steps in the direction Bernard had indicated; her path lay across the breadth of the valley and into the flanking hills.

  She walked for hours, discovering for herself the taste of the dust, the novel feel of strain in her calves and the rule of the highway – give way to anything larger or more numerous than yourself or be pushed aside. She talked to no one and was in turn unmolested, though that might have been due to the fortunate presence of a severe-faced nun, balanced side-saddle on a donkey, who preceded her on the road for many miles. In the worst heat of the day she paused in the shade of a lemon grove, where she begged a drink from a family also resting in the patchy shadow. A small girl shyly passed her a skin of red wine – the roughest Annette had ever tasted, but by now she was unconcerned – and then offered a broken loaf and a damp wedge of cheese along with a request for the ‘fine lady’ to bless them. Annette was touched by both the peasants’ generosity and the child’s faith, and tried to show her gratitude with gesture and prayer. She herself did not feel sanctified in any way, but was aware only of a growing wonder at the strangeness of it all and a vulnerability she had never experienced in the care of her family or husband. As she sat beneath a tree, looking away from the nearly deserted highway to the field behind the orchard where rows of workers toiled without pause at the hay-harvest, she felt the unguarded nature of her situation like an actual presence. Her hair itched with sweat but she caught herself looking behind her before scratching it, as if she were being watched by someone she did not trust.

  When the shadows had lengthened a few inches, though the day felt no cooler, she roused herself from under the tree and resumed her journey. There were fewer people on the road in the afternoon. The scythes of the haymakers flashed in the distance as they worked, frantic to bring the harvest in before the weather broke. Annette put a leaf into her mouth to relieve the dryness there, but it turned to a mucilaginous wad that did nothing to ease her thirst. The wine she had drunk had made her a little dizzy. She did not really notice when the road started rising and turning back and forth, winding up a minor valley into the hill
s. She did not notice until she stopped to sit on the verge for a few moments that she was passing another valley, on the flank of which was perched a large fortified house. The building gleamed in the strong light, which was becoming increasingly yellow now.

  Annette looked back and saw that she had passed the road that led off to the great house. She had to backtrack until she recovered her way; it would have been too difficult to cut across the valley, which was terraced and planted with rows of vines. The land here was too steep for hay-meadows and looked very dry. The minor road she now trod was, however, better-surfaced than the main highway, and Annette paused to pick off her new shoes, which were rubbing her, so that she could tread barefoot on the smooth flags.

  Almost as soon as she had started down the turn-off, the yellow-green light darkened and a sudden gust of wind threw grit into her face. She felt the first raindrops strike the back of her hand as she was wiping her eyes and in moments the storm had broken over her head and the rain was pouring down. There was no shelter, not even a lone tree near the road; Annette had no choice but to put her head down and keep walking. The day turned to premature dusk around her as the clouds rolled in and the water thundered down. It got into her hair and washed out the sweat. It soaked her robe, back and front, until she was wet to the skin and shivering in the new chill. Her wish for rain had been granted with a vengeance. Thunder grunted and growled overhead like a grumbling husband. She had never felt such elemental nakedness as she did now, hunched and slipping in the rain.

  But it was only a summer storm, and it passed as swiftly as it had arrived. It left the earth wet and gasping like an unsatisfied lover, and Annette soaked to the bone. She wrung out her long hair and the hem of her dress, which was sodden. The finely spun wool clung to her now like a second skin, moulded shamelessly to her thighs and breasts and the line of her back and rounded buttocks, heavy as leather. It was disgraceful. She tried to tug it back into its former shapelessness but it held tight to her neat curves, resisting all her attempts – and at least it was warm where it clung fast. Eventually she gave up and kept walking, hoping to dry the cloth with her own body heat. She was well aware of how it must look. Her slender form outlined in white left little to the imagination: her high, firm breasts moulded in wet fabric, and even the cleft between her arse-cheeks defined by the clinging, betraying material. A rosy flush of defiled modesty warmed her pale face and she kept her head up, searching the empty road ahead, not looking down in case she should be distracted by her own flaunted curves and the sight of her nipples, hardened against the cold wool, rubbing almost painfully on the wet fibres.

  She reached the gate-house of the great building far too soon for her robe to right itself, though it was actually steaming gently from her warmth beneath – as was the rich land in the renewed sunshine, giving off the organic scents of leaf-mould and animal dung. The gate-house was kept by a servant, who was poking at a piece of blocked guttering with a stick when she arrived. He turned, saw her, and stared. Annette shivered under his open regard but did not blench; she felt numb now, detached from reality once more. His gaze, roving undisguised over her displayed form, could not make her feel any more strange.

  ‘The Châtelaine Marguerite?’ she whispered. ‘I am on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Veronique.’

  The servant, bearded and stocky, nodded without a word, hefted his codpiece in an uncouth manner and waved her in through the gate. At that moment, a plump woman emerged from the gate-house and gaped at Annette.

  ‘A pilgrim, wife,’ the gatekeeper explained swiftly, his voice hoarse.

  The woman’s face, which up till now had registered only shock and distaste, shut like an iron trap. ‘I will take her to the Châtelaine,’ she said in a low voice. ‘She is in the garden. You stay here.’ Her husband obviously did not dare demur; the woman started off into the grounds at a fierce pace, waving Annette to follow her. She did not look round once at their guest. She led the way through an apple orchard and behind the stables to a wall to one side of the main building – clearly taking the most private route. No one met them as they walked. Annette caught only glimpses of the fine façade of the house, built of yellow stone. The door in the wall was stained green. The servant opened it, ushered Annette through and then shut it behind her so smartly that she jumped, fearing a trap. She looked around her.

  As promised, she was alone in a garden. After the bare hillsides, stitched with well-trimmed ranks of vines outside, this place seemed as lush as Eden itself. Small paths of yellow stone led here and there between beds of flowers and what she took to be herbs. There were peach trees heavy with fruit and arches laden with sprawling, golden hops, there were rosebushes – large and small – in full bloom everywhere, so that the air was filled with the velvety musky scent of them, and there were brilliant green seats of turf placed about the raised beds, so that one might sit and fill oneself with the scent of the summer. Everything was soaking wet, with raindrops shining on every leaf and the bees questing among the freshened flowers.

  Annette walked slowly through the garden, not knowing which direction to take, knocking showers of wet petals from every rosebush she inadvertently brushed against. Her hem became heavy with moisture once more. Her mind grew stiller in the rich, silent, enclosed place, to the point that, when she rounded a corner and saw two people standing before her, she could not remember without a struggle what she should say. The man and the woman, who had been laughing quietly together when she appeared, turned to observe her for a moment in silence. Annette met their keen inspection with some confusion.

  That the woman was no longer young was obvious from her too carefully made-up face, but she was still possessed of her underlying beauty and a pair of startling blue eyes. Her faded yellow hair was arranged in a gilded net; blonde hair was something Annette had hardly ever seen in this part of the country. She wore a green silk dress upon her tall and slender figure, the full skirts hitched up to one side on a cord so that she need not drag them in the mud of the garden, and was holding a bunch of damp lavender in her ringed hands.

  The young man with her was naked to the waist and barefoot, clad only in a pair of rough work hose and leaning on a wooden spade.

  Annette felt the silent weight of their scrutiny like a pressure over her heart. She dropped a curtsey and asked, ‘Châtelaine Marguerite?’

  ‘You are?’ said the woman, smiling coolly.

  ‘I am a pilgrim, my Lady,’ she stumbled, ‘on my way to the shrine of St Veronique. My name is Annette Mercier. I come to ask your permission to cross your land and …’

  The Châtelaine’s smile grew warm suddenly, like the throwing open of a door in winter to reveal a firelit room. ‘My dear,’ she said, advancing with arms out, ‘you are very welcome here. Annette, did you say? Did Michel send you? Of course!’ She kissed the younger woman lightly on either cheek; her perfume was scented with roses too. ‘My dear, you must have been caught in the storm – you are soaked. Come here and sit down. I shall send for dry towels at once.’

  Unable to answer, Annette was led forwards into a copse of fruit bushes and up to a stone seat near a wall. The surface of this was relatively dry and she sank down gratefully. The Châtelaine regarded her seriously. ‘You look very tired, my dear. You must have walked miles. Are you hungry?’

  Annette nodded, feeling dizzy. The sense of unreality was very strong; she felt as if she had fallen into the hands of a fairy queen in some ballad. If she shut her eyes, she was sure, none of this would be happening.

  ‘Stay here and rest,’ the Châtelaine commanded. ‘Gaspard will look after you. I will return shortly.’ So saying, she disappeared through the screen of shrubs.

  Annette was left alone with the young man, who strolled easily over to her side. She cast one glance at him and then looked away deliberately, her throat tightening. She had never seen any man in her life to match this one; tall and broad shouldered, every lean inch of him was defined by muscle. His hair was a glossy dark-brown mane that fell
straight as water down between his shoulder-blades, and his beard – a narrow line sketched along the angle of his chin – was as black as his brows. She sat still in her clinging wet robe and tried to ignore the smile she had glimpsed on his lips. As a married woman, she could not in modesty begin a conversation with a strange man. She fixed her gaze on a rose near her elbow. It was nearly unfurled, the white petals flushed with pink still curled over its secret heart. Raindrops bedecked its silky petals. Annette looked away again quickly, caught Gaspard’s movement and was tricked into looking at him. He had wandered round so that he was facing her directly, was exploring the wet folds of her dress openly with his gaze. When he saw her looking, his smile broadened; he had arrogant, dark eyes, the kind that it was extraordinarily difficult to look away from.

  The Châtelaine must have to keep this one on a tight rein, Annette thought distractedly, but she blushed anyway.

  ‘You’re hungry?’ he asked. She could not help but nod. He turned away unhurriedly to one of the bushes and began to pick the berries. He took his time, his smooth, muscular back with its sweep of hair almost challenging her not to watch him. She lost the challenge easily. She could feel her heart beating slow and hard.

  He returned with a handful of red berries and squatted nonchalantly before her. Annette sat with her back straight as a rod, pinioned by his gaze. She felt as though she were melting into her seat. He held out the berries over her lap, that mocking smile in his eyes and, when she did not move, picked one out and put it between his own lips. Annette watched helplessly as his fleshy, sensuous mouth closed upon it. He raised his eyebrows. She opened her mouth to say, ‘No’, but she hesitated a fraction too long, and he took another berry and smoothly pushed it between her lips. His fingertips grazed her softly.