by Claudia Dain
"This is no worthy task," she said, pulling away from him, wanting her own space to breathe and think and move. She did not want his hands upon her. She never would. If only he would believe that of her, then this marriage could end today.
God above, let this marriage end today.
"I have a maiden wife who will be a maiden still. It is the task I find before me. What can I do but meet it?" he said, grinning.
He caught her up against him and held her like a babe to his chest. The ground seemed leagues beneath her, and she held onto his neck without thinking. The smell of him was like goldenrod and honey, golden and sweet and wild.
It was certainly not how a knight should smell.
"My garments will be stained if you hold me like this. Let me down. Let me find my own way, I say again, I know what I am about."
"I am not afeared of blood, Elsbeth. I know the scent and look of it too well. If your garment is stained, I will buy you ten more to replace it, but I will not relinquish you. That price is too high. The feel of you in my arms is worth ten gowns and a cloak of ermine beside."
"You talk of cloaks of ermine when all this is about is a woman and her courses. Or a man who has found his will thwarted by the flow of blood." Aye, he had bumped against God's provision for her and was bruised. A lovely thought. Now, if only he would break and set her free.
He looked hard at her and then smiled, pressing her to him even more. He was a hard man and hot. For all he complained of the cold, he was so very hot.
"Aye, you speak true. My will is thwarted." He looked at her and pressed a kiss to her brow and then he whispered, "I want you. I want you, Elsbeth. I want the dark and solemn beauty of you to break over me like the rising dawn after a night of storms and wild winds. I want the softness of your skin to be my only contact with the earth. I want your breath to feed me. I want—"
"Stop!" she said, burying her face against his neck, shutting out the sight of him, but not the scent and not the feel. He surrounded her.
She could easily learn to hate him.
"Aye, I will, but only because we are at the hall. Let us put a happier face on this for your father."
"Nay! Say naught to him."
He looked into her eyes and smiled slowly. "I will say nothing. Let him think what he will think. Our time and our tidings are our own. I will not betray."
He took the steps in stride, the weight of her seeming no more than a cloak he carried. The lights and noise of her father's holding came to her first and then the smells. The way to the upper chambers lay across the hall. They would need to cross all of it to reach the room that was hers. She did not know how she would manage a passage of such distance with her dignity intact. Perhaps there was no way.
The sounds of the hall quieted as they entered. And then there came the laughter.
"Did she faint again?" her father called out. "She is too much at her prayers, that one."
"Nay, she did not faint," Hugh said, and she could hear the smile in his voice, the good humor he projected to the very rafters. "I am a husband newly made; am I to be faulted if I want the feel of my wife in my arms? Is Elsbeth not to be praised for giving in to my whims so readily?"
And so it ended before it had even begun. Her father was silenced, her dignity no more than bruised, and they were across the hall and climbing the stairs to her chamber.
"Take note, Elsbeth," Hugh said as he climbed the dark and twining passage. "If you would still a tongue, speak long and speak well, stilling all opposition by your very breath."
"It takes a mighty breath to still my father," she said, looking over his shoulder and back down the stair as the noise of the hall resumed its normal sound.
"As you say," he said, laughing. "But I have breath enough, have no fear."
"Of that, I do have no fear," she said, looking at his profile.
How that he could keep such good cheer about him? She never knew a man to be so winsome for so little cause. She had no cause to complain, except that it did make him more difficult to resist. Temptation's package was ever sweet.
He elbowed past the heavy door and then set her down in her chamber. All was dark within; the fire had not been lit, nor the tapers. The wind was rising without, dark clouds of purple and ash gray rolling across a darkening sky. The westering sun was hidden behind heavy clouds and thrashing treetops, moving relentlessly away, leaving them all in growing darkness.
The blood ran in ever growing force down her leg.
"Go now," she said.
"Go? Now?" he said, looking at her like a newborn calf.
"Aye," she said, pushing him from the chamber with her hands on his massive chest. Did women not bleed in Jerusalem when their courses ran? "Now!"
He backed up at her words, letting her force him from the chamber. "I will go, but I will remain without. I will not leave."
"Aye, I am much comforted," she said, shaking her head at his declaration. He could go back to far Jerusalem for all she cared at that moment. In fact, she would prefer it.
When the door was secured against him, she knelt by her trunk and pulled out her binding cloth and pad of lamb's wool. Lifting her skirts, she secured all somewhat clumsily.
Could she not hear him breathing at the door? And then she wiped the smear of blood from her legs with a dampened cloth. Thank God above she had chosen to wear a crimson garment. Her chemise had taken the worst of it; she needed to don a new one, which would require that she remove all and begin from the skin out.
Did she not hear her husband moving impatiently at the door? She drew the curtain that covered the door against drafts, shutting him out still further. With that last barrier in place, she removed her garments.
It was when she was completely naked that he knocked again, softly yet insistently.
She jumped and whirled, her chemise wadded to her chest.
"What is it?" she hissed.
"Someone comes."
"I can do nothing as to that," she said, pulling the chemise over her head. It was slow work; she was unaccountably clumsy.
He banged upon the door with his fist. "Let me in. I will not be found upon the doorstep."
"Aye, it is better to be found banging at my door. That will cause no comment in the hall," she said to the door, fumbling with her clothing.
He was not helping her, though she could not think that he would care as to that. He only wanted to get in. The state of her dress was not his concern. Nay, but it was hers.
"Better to find me breaking down the door of an unwilling and chill wife than to find me sitting in the doorway like an errant dog," he said, his mouth obviously pressed to the door.
"I am not unwilling, merely unable," she said. "I have done nothing. This is not my fault.''
Her chemise was on, as was her pelisse. She could have let him in, but she was reluctant to receive him without shoes and stockings. And she needed to remove the pile of bloody garments on the floor.
"You have surely done nothing. That will be proved on the morrow," he said. "Or in the next instant. I think it is your father who comes."
She opened the door at that and pulled him inside. He closed the door behind them and bolted it. She tried to hide the bloody evidence of her flux with a kick of her foot, but he looked exactly where she did not want.
"It is true, then," he said, "though it is difficult to see in this dim light. Can we not light a taper?"
"I can see very well," she said. "And I do not lie. And some things, such as this, are private."
"So, is that your way of saying we cannot light a taper?" he said, smiling softly.
Why did he turn everything to jest and mirth and laughter? Could he not see that life was a solemn affair of duty and service? Could he not see that she did not want him in her life?
"Light it if you will," she said, turning from him to pick up her soiled clothes, "but I am not staying."
"Oh, yea, you will stay," he said, leaning against the door with his arms crossed over his chest. He had mig
hty arms and shoulders like an ox. He was more formidable than any iron bolt "We cannot leave, not till morn when the whole world of Warkham will know and record that we have performed our marital duty."
"As I said, I do not lie," she said. "And I will not, especially not about this."
She was untouched and would remain so. Would that the world would know she was a maiden still. The whole world, yet not her father. He would be most displeased that his plans had tilted against a will and power mightier than his own.
"Then do not lie, but lie with me this night. Our night will be chaste, yet I will have your company, Elsbeth. None other shall claim you."
"None other seeks me," she said. "I do not understand why you would want to... want to spend the night closeted with me when there can be... there will be no..."
"Consummation?"
"Copulation," she said.
"At least you did not say fornication. That would have wounded me greatly," he said, his smile as firmly in place as ever.
He did love to jest at her expense. She had no liking for it. Yet when did that ever stop a man?
"I have no desire to wound you," she said, still holding her bloody garments. She really had to get them in water. "Now I must away."
"Nay, you must not."
"You really have no idea what a woman's needs are at such a time, do you?" she said, pushed to the edge of her patience, of which she had a bounteous supply, easily a match to her famous serenity. A bottomless supply, until Hugh had stumbled into her life.
"As much as any unmarried man," he said. "But I know what my needs are very well. I need only to have you with me this night. It is not so great a need to meet, is it, Elsbeth? It is a nigh great need in my heart. To have you lie with me, to touch your face, to watch you while you sleep and hold you in my arms, to talk with you as the owls scour the air on silent wings... all this is my need, and all you must do to satisfy it is to lie with me on this bed. Now."
He was too swift in words. He scoured her heart with his words of longing and tenderness, leaving her blood-raw and aching for what would never be. For what she could not allow.
"Let me tell you what I need, my lord. You are now a married man and you should know these things. I will not lie abed all night, with you or without you. I will be up again and yet again to change the padded sling I wear that catches my blood-fall."
She hoped to shock him, or at least repulse him. He looked neither shocked nor repulsed.
"Then I will stay and talk with you the night through. I will wipe the blood from you, cleansing you. I will hold back the dark fall of your hair so that it will not hinder you in your self-ministrations. I will not leave you, Elsbeth. Let us share this bloody night together. A man expects no less than blood on his wedding night."
He was impossible. Worse, he had managed to embarrass her. He was beginning to remind her of her father.
"The church has rules about such things," she said. "I am not clean at such a time."
"Blood is blood, Elsbeth," he said. "No man wants to wash in it, though sometimes he must. I will not be defiled by sharing a bed with you," he said, stepping away from the door. "I will not touch you, if that is what you wish. I only will not leave you. That is my vow and my desire. What fault in that, little wife?"
God had given her this miracle of blood, and Hugh soiled its beauty by his presence. Had not God intended for him to leave her to herself? It was her desire, and her desires were ever in line with God's own divine will. She truly would make a most perfect nun, if only her husband would open his eyes and see that truth for himself. They could have the marriage annulled in time for Prime. It was a prayer worth praying. Let him stay, then, and see what manner of holy woman he had bound himself to. This night of blood and prayer might serve her cause well.
"Stay, then," she said, throwing her soiled garments in the corner.
He smiled his pleasure and his victory; yea, she saw it for what it was, and then he said, "Now may we light the taper?"
Oh, aye, he was the victor. None but the victorious would laugh so.
"Aye, and the fire as well," she said. "I would not leave you in the dark, since you seem to fear it so."
"Oh, wife," he said, laughing as he bent to the fire, fanning the chill embers. "You are a warrior at heart to strike so at a man you little know. I had not thought it of you—you who are given to much prayer and little speech. Or so it is said."
"I had not thought you a man to listen to gossip. It is not the way of the righteous."
"Say, then, that I have listened to the tales of you, Elsbeth, Prayer Warrior."
"You have said it. Prayer Warrior. I seek no other life. I do no other battle."
"Except with husbands," he said, straightening. He had kindled the fire, casting red and gold light throughout the small chamber.
"I know nothing of husbands," she said, her back to the wall, her bloody garments at her feet.
"Yet," he said, grinning. "But that will come, in time. You do know something, if the tales be true, of men and what they must risk in their quest for holiness."
"You speak of Richard of Warefeld," she said.
"Aye, I do," he said, crossing his arms over his chest, studying her in the flickering light.
"That is not my tale to tell."
"You are wise to say so, Elsbeth. Never would I urge it from you. Yet many in Christendom know what he did and marvel at his courage and his purity of heart. I wish I had been there."
"Nay, you do not," she said. "It broke the heart to see it, yet lifted the spirit to heaven itself."
"So it is said of all journeys to sanctity. The Lord of Hosts calls us to a narrow way, rocky and treacherous, yet there is no other path."
"Nay, there is not," she said. "It is the path I long with all my soul to tread. That path and no other."
She did not want to be a wife. She did not want a husband. She did not want anything he could give her.
He was a golden force in that darkened chamber, glowing with health and strength and holy purpose. It was this vision of him she feared the most, even more than his beauty. Her mother had not prepared her for this, and she felt ill-equipped to fight against holy ardor. It seemed immoral even to try.
Yet he was not pure. He was mortal, and mortal man could claim much, but never purity. Never perfection. No matter what the eyes declared or the ears heard, he was a man, and she would have naught to do with men.
"You would have it no other way, I think," he said, coming toward her, the size of him great with the fire at his back and the darkness all around him. She held her ground. She would not give way.
"There is no other way," she said. "I do not wish for what is not. I only pray for what can and should be."
"You are wise to spend your time so," he said, closing the distance between them. "God has instructed us to pray without ceasing; there can be no better way to spend a life."
Yet how could she be a goodly wife if she spent her time so? Did he not see that? She could not pray without ceasing and be a wife. Unless matters were different in Jerusalem. She had not considered that.
He knelt at her feet and picked up the bloody garments, and she gasped in shock. This she did not want of him. It was too foul and too... intimate. He was not her servant. He was a stranger, though a husband. No man should tend to such. What manner of men did Jerusalem birth?
"It is how I would spend my life," she said, "if I were freed from the bonds of marriage."
"This I understand, Elsbeth," he said, looking down at her. He held the soiled garments in one hand. "But I can do nothing as to that. We are bound, the contracts signed, our oaths given. Let be, little wife. Let God direct you. Only trust, and all will be well."
"I do trust," she said. And she did. But not him, not a husband, not a man. Her trust was all for God.
"Then rest in that trust, and tell me where to put these," he said, lifting the bloody garments. "I would help you, if and when I can."
In all he said, he seemed to s
ay more, as if there were a deeper meaning just below the golden light of his beauty. But she never looked for hidden meanings unless they were in holy writ; she did not want anything approaching meanings from the man before her eyes. Only fools looked for the meaning behind raw temptation.
"If you would help me, then bring me a pail of water, not too full. I must set the fabric in it and let it soak. Also, I need more cloth for binding. Is this the work of a knight of Outremer, my lord, to fetch and tend the needs of a woman?"
She was angry, vulnerable because he made her so and would not let her tend to herself. In all things, she was a woman who did not need a man.
He only smiled, as was his way. Was there aught that could topple him from his calm complacency?
To tend to your needs is all I need know of duty, Elsbeth," he said. "Now I will leave and see to your requests, but you must vow that you will stay behind this door. I will not share you with any tonight. You are mine, wholly. It is our night, no matter what blood comes between us. Only blood shall separate us, and only for a time."
"I will stay," she said. "Only hurry."
He grinned and bowed to her, surely a mockery of all chivalry. "I will away and return as the hawk, so glad am I that you hunger for my return. Your desire for me grows upon the hour."
"'Tis the padding I desire," she mumbled as he closed the door behind him. "Not you!"
He stuck his golden head back in, grinning as was his way. "If you will allow me to instruct? 'Twill only serve you well to flatter me."
"I have said I do not lie," she bit out.
He laughed as he closed the door. "I know you do not lie, little wife, yet I am not blind. I see what you feel for me. Your eyes reveal what your lips will not."
The door closed with a soft thud. If she were the type of maid to throw things, she might have thrown the stool against the hard surface of the door. It would have made a mighty sound. But she was not that sort of woman, though it appeared that he could drive her to it.
Her eyes revealed what her lips did not?
