Twice Enoch and I rode forth to meet with our villeins. I said little but lent my presence to give the Scot authority. Such forays were tense to the extreme. We learned the dreadful condition of the renters firsthand which depressed us both. Most of the tension, however, came from Enoch’s hostility toward me.
When I felt a twinge of guilt for not digging into my wealth to purchase whatever was needed—not that there was much to be had from a ravaged countryside—Enoch stopped me by his churlish attitude. Formerly I’d mourned because people, including the Scot, loved me only because of my estate. How naive I had been! They’d never loved me, only curried favor because I had something they wanted. Now Enoch controlled Wanthwaite and I was hardly more than a serf to my own soil. If my plan of annulment should fail, the treasure was my escape of last resort: I would buy my way into a nunnery.
One night Enoch and I were suddenly wakened from a deep sleep by a pounding on the door and Father Gerald rushed in, a wax lantern held high.
“Did you call for me, Lord Enoch?”
Enoch pulled himself upward and stared at the priest. “Yif I had, surely ye could wait till marnin’.”
“I thought you were ill unto death,” Father Gerald answered, a faint note of defense in his voice. He glanced quickly at me, back to Enoch on the floor, grasped our bedding arrangement. “I see that—er—I was mistaken. Do forgive me. Unless—are you all right, Alix?”
“Aye, Father, thank you.”
“Who tald ye I war sick?” Enoch asked bluntly.
“He was mistaken. Well, good night.”
“Wait, Father Gerald,” I said. “Please sleep by our fire for the rest of the night. The way is too dangerous.”
“Thank you, dear, I believe I shall.”
Mumbling apologies, he left.
Enoch spoke from the dark floor. “Who war his informant, Alix?”
“How should I know?”
“Mayhap he got wind that ye war gang to put poison in my broth.”
“Don’t be daft.”
I pulled my pelt high, much pleased. I had a witness of undeniable repute; it had gone just as Dame Margery and I had planned.
DAME MARGERY URGED ME TO ACT while the even was still fresh, for if we waited Enoch might claim that that particular night had been an exception in our sleeping habits. I hedged, saying I needed one more witness. Unexpectedly the winter gales came to my aid.
“’Tis time to bundle,” Gruoth informed me. “Privacy mun give way.”
’Twas said in front of Enoch and the others; no one demurred.
I’d heard of bundling oft on the road, but had never done it to my knowledge and wasn’t sure exactly what it meant. ’Twas very simple: we would lie in a close human heap for warmth. Human flesh is very hot and many lives have been saved by bundling. Unfortunately lusts are also hot and not likely to abate under such conditions.
“’Tis why most babes be born in September and October,” Matilda told Gruoth and me. “I’m hopin’ Dugan comes through this time.”
“’Twill help you as well,” Gruoth informed me, for despite my balking on my wedding day, she thought I yearned for Enoch.
It would, but not in the way she meant. A circle of furs was placed near the fire and we all lay down close as pups in a litter. Naturally husbands and wives were next to each other, though hardly alone. Enoch was too proud by far not to stay by me, though a wight called Charles was just as close on the other side. Soothly I was grateful for the custom on many counts: now all the Scots would be witness to my chastity; for the first time in weeks, I was warm enough to sleep.
During the first night of bundling everyone was discreet, but thereafter Dugan and Donald exercised their conjugal rights regularly within sight and sound of the whole group. Their activity didn’t arouse comment, but Enoch’s lack of interest in me certainly did. I caught the furtive looks, the occasional pitying or wondering words that a lusty groom would neglect his duties.
After two weeks of this situation, Gruoth took me aside one day. “Alix, do ye see any change?”
“In what way?”
“In Enoch’s—his interest.”
“You’re with us every night, so you know.”
“Do he never invite ye up to yer chamber? I thought mayhap …”
“Never.” I was pleased at her noticing. “Why?”
Her red face got redder. “Well, I been putting a love philter into yer slops.”
Enoch and I had been sharing a bowl and I’d thought the last batch of stew tasted like toads boiled in witches’ brew.
“What’s in it, Gruoth?”
“’Tis a staunch recipe, has never failed: entrails of bulls, fish scales, nail parings, human blood and mandragory. Think you it could be because I’m somewhat lacking in ground loadstone?”
I didn’t answer, for soothly it had worked all too well—but on the wrong person. Lying close against Enoch, I’d been kept wide awake all night because of my treacherous liver which zoomed like Greek fire through my body.
Be as be may, there was no longer any reason to tarry I had all the witnesses I was likely to have, and Gruoth’s use of the philter substantiated that Enoch was at fault, not I. Dame Margery assured me that the villagers would move in with me for protection if the Scots left, so I had no excuse whatsoever. Nevertheless, ’twas almost the day of the Nativity before I broached the subject. By some miracle the Scots were out seeking holly for the hall, leaving Enoch and me alone.
“Enoch, we must talk,” I began.
Just as he raised his lugubrious face from watching the fire, there was a sharp rap on the door.
“I’ll see who’s there.” I ran to the entry, relieved at the interruption. “Hello, Archie. Who’s this?”
Archie Werwillie stood with a fat wolf pup in his arms. He handed me the woolly babe and stepped inside.
“’Tis a present for ye, Alix. Maisry once said as how ye like them.”
“How thoughtful! Aye, I love their wild eyes. Don’t you?” I traced the pup’s silver mask with my finger, staring into his tilted topaz eyes, as innocent as honey.
“We doona need another mouth to feed,” Enoch growled ungraciously.
Archie flushed and shifted his weight awkwardly. “Well, I don’t want to bother ye. I’d best be going.”
I stood at the open door and chatted a bit to ease his leavetaking, thanked him again, and when I returned to the hall I was in the choleric humor necessary for my discussion.
Enoch, too, was choleric. “Doona ask me for bones, whan ye’re too selfish to support yer own home wi’ the treasure.”
“I’ll feed him from my bowl,” I answered. “But I’m glad you admit Wanthwaite is my home, for that’s what I want to talk about.”
“My home!” he shouted. “Mine! Paid for by money! Paid for by suffering yer presence all these years! Fram the time I took ye and the ferst Lance on the road, I’ve had no peace. I’ve earned this cursed hall.”
I put the pup down. “This one will not be called Lance.”
“Whatever ye call him, mayhap I doona want him in my house!”
“You want an appropriate name? Very well then, insofar as Wanthwaite is about to revert to the crown, I’ll call him King Richard.”
I saw Enoch’s foot swing back but I moved too slowly to save the pup. In an instant the babe was hurled against the stone wall, fell to the floor, a lifeless pile of fur.
“Oh my God, my God!” Enoch cried in a frenzy as he rushed to the beast. “Alix, I didna mean to … forgive me!”
And I lost my sanity!
“Forgive? Aye!” I lunged at his middle with my fist forward to knock breath from his chest, but missed. “I’ll kill you, you demon!”
“Stop it! Stop it, I say!”
He grabbed my wrists and I bit his thumb near to the bone.
“Damnatioun! Ye fanged tiger! Stop, or I’ll beft ye!”
I attacked his knees, toppled him like a horse, jumped on his shoulders, sought a poker to finish the job,
was thrown off and he was on top.
“Aye,” I hissed. “Get prepared to live tangled like snakes forever—for if I get one finger free, you’re dead!”
“Alix, I’m sorry. I’ll get ye another wolf, I swear. Shall we make truce?”
“Truce! Truce! So you can find some other way to steal from me? Deprive me of every coin so that I couldn’t even enter a convent!”
“Ye in a convent?” He howled with derision. “Sister Alix! Be there a convent fer heilie harlots?”
“Let me up, you pimpreneau.”
“You won’t try to murther me?”
I promised and soon we were facing each other, both of us torn and bruised. The Scot was glowering, his face perplexed.
“Why did ye call me pimpreneau?”
“You know very well—but that’s not what I want to discuss.” I took a deep breath, tried to recall my plan but was much shaken. “You remember when Father Gerald came?”
“I remember, boot yif ye want to talk aboot that, ye mun tell me why pimpreneau, or I’m mum as an oyster.”
Our eyes locked, his demanding, mine refusing. Then I shrugged.
“If you insist, though ’tis a subject I’d think you would want to avoid.”
“Nay, I want to hear all yer fantastick mind can invent. ’Tis becoming my hobby. Gae on: pimpreneau.”
“Very well. Ambroise told me on my last day in Acre.” Then I reconsidered. “Actually King Richard hinted as well, and Sir Gilbert said the same. So you see, I have three sources.”
“Sir Gilbert? What died?”
“He may be dead now, but he was very much alive when he put poison in our meat.”
Recognition crossed his face. “Very well, the varlet sayed that I war a pimpreneau. For whom?”
“For me,” I replied with deadly quiet. “You made a contract to sell me to Zizka. You procured.”
He turned a greenish pallor. “I—quhat?”
“With Fat Giselle and Zizka, you agreed to sell me to Ambroise.”
He looked sick. “But ye war there, heard it all, sae much fer each performance …”
“Except that I was too innocent to understand what you meant by performance. I was to be the king’s pretty boy! To … do … you know.”
“Ye dare say that aboot me?” Now his face was purple and I hoped someone would come in at once. Why had I been so foolish as to talk of this dangerous topic?
“That’s not—not all,” I stuttered on despite myself. “Richard paid you even more when he wanted me in his tent. Aye, gave you the earldom of Northumberland … and other favors as well. And you concealed it all from me. Kept me ignorant. Speak not to me of deception!”
“Lies! Lies! All lies!” he bellowed. “Made up by Sodomites to save their own skins! I tried to protect ye!”
“Protect!” I shrieked back. “You occupy my land like a conquering army! Kill my wolf! But you outwitted yourself by refusing my body. The priest is now witness to the fact that our marriage is not consummated. That we sleep separately! I’m going to get an annulment as fast as I can!”
And I leaped up the stairs to my chamber, slammed the door shut.
Almost immediately I heard him follow me, and he knocked.
“Go away!”
He opened the door and silently handed me the wolf. “He war only stunned.”
He stepped in and closed the door behind him.
His chest was heaving and his blue eyes were wild. Soothly I feared for my life. I held the trembling cub up as a shield.
“Ye have insulted me most grossly and while that reflects on yer character more than mine, for soothly ye mun know better, I’ll not be leavin’ such remarks stand without refutation,” he said as formally as he could in his distress. “Ferst, ye talked of how I gave ye a bit of cocky-leeky along the road.”
“Venison as well, and fish when it could be had,” I conceded quickly.
“Aye, but yer stomach would not have traveled far if Magnus and Roland had caught ye in the inn, or yif I hadn’t taken ye safely through the woods.”
“That’s true. Aye, I should have mentioned that—and that was before you knew I was wealthy.”
“Ye lied to me every way possible in London-town, made me yer slubberdegullian afore the innkeeper, Gladys, everybody, but I still accepted ye as my brother and took ye to France, paid fer yer room fer a year.”
“I paid you back! Have you forgotten?”
“I signed to crusade. Think ye that I yearned to see the wonders of Jerusalem? That I wanted to serve yer English King? No, I wanted to protect ye! Cared for thee—loved thee, God help me. Didn’t I shaw it every day we were together?”
“You left me at the Rhône River,” I said stubbornly.
He groaned and beat his head. “I wouldn’t have yif I’d knawn ye were female. I thought ye were a pretty winsing boy, and in Marseilles I got wind of the scheme to catch ye fer the king. Fram that time on, I risked my life to protect ye. Have ye forgot the fight on the Far?”
I blanched. Somehow I had. One event wiped out another and all I could seem to remember were those last two days in Acre.
“Even in Jerusalem, I stuck like a Scottish thistle, even whan ye tried hard to pluck me off ye, My Lady. By now, I knew ye war moon-eyed for the king and that I’d lost the battle. He understood well enow that I was fighting his schemes. Why do ye think he sent me into the tunnel to sap his wall? Because I war his ‘best engineer’? I war his worst obstacle to takin’ ye.”
“Thank you, Enoch,” I said weakly. My face grew hot.
“As for Northumberland, Richard offered me the title yif I would leave the Crusade. Otherwise he would give me every woodly assignment to have me dead. That is the truth, Alix.” There was a long pause and his voice shook with intensity. “I never received a farthing for yer ‘services,’ whate’er they were, nor any thanks fram ye either. King Richard lied to ye outright. As for Ambroise or Gilbert, they either lied or they didna knaw the truth.”
His eyes blazed with outrage. I started to speak but he cut me short. “The thing that hurts most is that ye knaw every word of this already, aye, and mar besides. Either yer mind be twisted or ye have the meanest, mast ungrateful disposition since Lilith and I doona knaw why I waste my time on ye!”
He slammed out of the room, and a few moments later I heard the muted beats of his horse as he crossed the snow-covered bridge.
ENOCH DIDN’T RETURN till after dark. There was a general sigh of relief when he entered as no one is safe when the sun is down. We had a thick rabbit stew to eat, but I wasn’t very hungry. As soon as we were finished, Enoch held out his hand to me.
“Shall we retire upstairs tonight, wife?”
Gruoth shot a triumphant look at me.
Silently I followed the Scot up the steps, my heart pounding. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told him of my scheme for annulment; perhaps he was going to consummate just to thwart me.
He put the candle down in our cold chamber, as he had on our wedding night.
“Alix, I been thinkin’; I, too, want an annulment.”
I felt I’d been pushing a gate which had suddenly opened and I was off balance.
“There’s no hurry …”
“I be leavin’ fer Scotland tomorrow.”
Soothly dazed, I sat on the bed.
“And leave me all alone? How will I get through the winter?”
His shadowed face twisted bitterly. “I knaw how concerned ye are fer yer ane stomach and comfort. I talked to Archie, Gordoc and some others. They’ll cum in the morning.”
A throatball lodged in my neck. “Is Father Gerald willing?”
“Yif ye and I both admit we doona care for each other, there’s no difficulty.”
“I see.” I took a deep breath. “I guess I should thank you. I mean, I realize you’re doing this for me—after you’ve spent a thousand livres of your own money …”
He laughed in that dry husky way that makes me nervous.
“Which gives ye measure of
how desperate I am. Frankly, I’d pay mar than a thousand livres to escape this boggy pissmar.”
“It’s better in spring,” I said defensively, not knowing why I suddenly felt so wretched. I’d won, hadn’t I? I should be dancing in circles.
“I wasna referrin’ to the weather, Alix,” he answered in that same odious dry manner. “The fumes and fens lie within. All’s gang awry, but in Scotland I’ll begin to heal.”
More and more uneasy, I thought it only fair to appease the oaf somewhat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I thought not.”
“But I want to—to apologize for believing that you took money for … that you sold me.”
“Slavery be nocht my trade.”
I was beginning to sweat. “And I know ’tis belated, but … thank you for all you did for me. In the inn and … you know, everything.”
“Ye’re welcome. Now, since I’m leavin’ early, I’ll bed wi’ the others downstairs.” He stood silently. “Goodbye, Alix.”
Abruptly, he turned and left. I threw myself across the bed.
What had I done? He hadn’t tried to consummate—didn’t want me any more than I wanted him. We were getting along fine, restoring Wanthwaite, until I stirred the Scot’s latent hatred with my accusations. I was sorely confused at my feelings, at his, and pushed my brain to its limits trying to sort it all out.
Shield of Three Lions Page 51
