by Claudia Dain
Hugh took the cloth she had used on him and rubbed her legs with it, from ankle to knee, in soft, slow strokes. The water was only a little warm and the room was cool, even with the fire at her back; her legs shivered as he wet them, and she trembled, as he had said she would.
He rinsed the cloth in the tub and then touched her again, more slowly, caressing rather than washing. And higher. Higher, though she had said nay to that. She did not say nay now. His hand stroked upward, past knee to thigh, to the very joining of her thighs. To the very padding that shielded and protected her.
"You are so hot, Elsbeth. I had not thought the fire was so high and hot as that, but you prove me wrong. Your skin burns under my hand. Without this cloth to shield me, I would be scorched and blistered."
Nay, she was not hot. She shivered and trembled. Her heart shook within her ribs. She could not draw a breath without a gasp to mark it.
"Open for me," he said, the cloth high up on her thigh. Her legs were pressed together, closed against him, closed against the blood that flowed out of her. Which did she want more, her blood or his touch? She did not know. She had fallen that far.
She did not know which was blessing and which was curse.
"Open," he repeated, his breath soft against her thigh. His hair was drying, golden and shining against her skin.
She opened for him, just a bit. Just a slight shifting of her feet. She could not see anything but the golden halo of his hair. She could not think beyond his next touch, his next stroke against her thigh. She could not even think to pray.
His hand stroked up the inside of her thigh, his fingertips just brushing the wadding of her protection. His hand came away, sheathed in white linen touched by a tint of red.
"You bleed," he said.
"Aye," she said, swaying on her feet, the fire at her back and the fire between her legs consuming her. She laid a hand upon his shoulder, steadying herself. "I told you."
"Aye, and I believed. Still, I would cleanse you as best I may."
He stroked again and turned her. He turned her so that her back was to him, her skirts left to fall in front so that her posterior was exposed to his sight and to his touch.
"Nay. Enough," she said.
Now she was begging and she had no will to stand on pride. He was destroying her. Gently, softly destroying her. She would have no will left to fight if he did not stop now.
"Not enough," he said, and she could feel his breath on her derriere. She clenched against the sensation and felt the pulsebeat of desire pound within her core. "Never enough," he said. "You are mine. I want all of you. Even the blood. Even your shame. Give me all and I will be content."
"You said no harm."
"I will not harm. I have not harmed. I have barely touched," he said, stroking her derriere with the cloth, edging his hand between her cheeks, running his damp hand down the inside of her thigh.
"You have touched all," she said, gasping, trying to drop her skirts. He held them fast and laughed.
"Spoken like a maiden. When this time of constraint has passed, you shall learn the difference, little one. I will have all of you. You will give me all of you."
"Nay," she said, turning within his arms, facing him, the enemy to her vow.
"And you will want all of me," he said, pulling her down to kneel in front of him. "'Tis the way of marriage, Elsbeth. One body, one flesh, as the Lord commands. Will you disobey?"
"I will follow God's path for me," she said, knowing her meaning was different from his.
"As will I," he said. "We can do no more. We must do no less," he said, throwing the blood-tinged cloth into the tub, where it floated softly before sinking to disappear in the dark shadows of the water. "I torment myself. To touch you, lay my hands upon you, dwell upon your beauty, is torment when I cannot have you. When I know that you do not want me... yet."
He was wrong. She wanted him. It was her torment. She did want him yet she would never choose to have him.
Even kneeling as they were, he was taller by a head. His heart beat in his breast, and she could count the beats beneath his golden skin. He had very little body hair, just a thin line that hovered low on his torso, trailing down to his manhood, darkening as it went. His cloth held about his hips, for which she thanked God most profoundly. A thin barrier, yet welcome.
"Do not ask for what I cannot give," she said, closing her eyes against the vision of him.
He pressed her head to his chest, comforting her, running his hand down the long fall of her hair.
"I will not," he said, and she was comforted. Until he added, "You will want to give me all. I will see to that."
Chapter 8
"The timing was most unfortunate."
"God is the master of lime and His will made perfect by it. I am not constrained nor concerned. All will be well."
Gautier looked at his daughter's husband. All would be well? Only a Levantine would find a bleeding and unclean wife to be a matter of no concern. Perhaps he did not have it in him to take a woman. The Poulains were soft, as were all who were born within the shadow of the holy sepulcher and lived out their days on the rim of the Great Sea. They smelled too sweet to be men of blood. They loved the bath, not battle. They lived in cities behind thick walls of stone; when did they battle but over the choice of damask for their bedhangings?
Hugh of Jerusalem was all too fit a match for his prayerful daughter. They could well pray each other into heaven before this marriage was consummated, which would not serve. He needed this marriage. He had arranged it most carefully. If not for Elsbeth's flux and Hugh's fear of blood, all would have been settled by now. If Hugh would only lift his fleshy sword and poke it into his daughter, the matter could be set to rest.
Gautier looked askance at his newfound son. He looked a pretty man, mayhap too pretty to do his service to a maid. There were many tales told of the men of the Levant, tales that would not serve his goals. It was certain that Elsbeth would not encourage him, not with Ardeth's counsel shaping her as it did. This marriage must be consummated, sealed and set. 'Twas up to Hugh to do his part. It was up to him to point the Poulain in the right direction.
If Hugh could not manage to find his way into Elsbeth, securing her as his, then Gautier must consider other means for gaining what he sought from this union. He was not a man to shrink from any course. Nay, he was a man made for anything.
"You are confident," Gautier said. "I must take comfort in that, drinking of your confidence."
"Your confidence is not misplaced," Hugh said. "All will be well."
Gautier shrugged. "She is most devout. She will not welcome you, I fear," Gautier said.
"To be devout is no sin," Hugh said, looking over the curtain wall to the fields below. They walked the battlements, seeking fresher air than that to be found in the still confines of the bailey. "I am most pleased by Elsbeth. You did not speak false concerning her."
"I did not speak false on anything," Gautier said, ignoring the fields below, studying Hugh instead.
"That pleases me as well," Hugh said lightly, "and I did not doubt but that you spoke true. Your good name has traveled far, even to Outremer."
"That is well. I have done good service in my life, and while my reward will surely find me in heaven, to be praised on earth is equally satisfying."
To be praised on earth was all the praise a man would get, his eternal praise robbed to feed it, according to the Gospels. But if Gautier did not know his Scriptures, Hugh would not be the light to blind him with the truth.
They had an agreement, the two of them. An agreement which hinged on Elsbeth. Knowing her better, knowing her father better, made the agreement more unpleasant to him, yet he would not disappoint Baldwin. Baldwin and Jerusalem needed him to succeed in this distant and cold land, and so he would succeed.
He would not disappoint. He would not fail. It was well within his power to achieve all ends, though his heart did not yearn for the battle ahead. Nay, his heart had been touched by Elsbeth and, on
ce touched, was changed.
He had not expected that. He had come to take a wife, but he had not come to find his life changed. It was unwelcome, what she aroused in him: an urge to protect and defend which had nothing of Baldwin in it. The soft warmth he felt when he made her smile was surprising. She did not smile often, that he knew. He felt like the victor of a great battle with every smile won from her shuttered heart.
Still, a man did his duty and asked his heart to bear the burden of it. He was Poulain. He knew where his loyalty lay. God would see to Elsbeth if men failed her, as they surely would.
"Does she know yet that you stay at Warkham?" Gautier asked, pulling his cloak tighter against a sudden sodden gust.
"Nay, she does not know she will not see Sunnandune. Yet, until her flux is past we must stay where we are. Travel would be difficult as it stands now with her. She will not wonder at it."
Gautier laughed and looked up at the sky. "All the world must seem wet and unwelcoming to you now, Hugh. Take another woman of my holding to ease your wait. I will not look amiss on such an act. A man's needs must be met elsewhere when his wife rains blood upon the sheets."
"Do not men welcome rain?" Hugh said, pulling his own cloak about him, cloaking his tongue in courtesy. "Elsbeth is not unwelcoming, she is simply unable. I can wait for Elsbeth and will wait for her. I need no other woman. Patience, Lord Gautier."
"You counsel yourself. I am not the man who must wait for a woman to become ready to receive my seed. My seed is set."
"Your lady wife looks well. She will deliver you a fine child," Hugh said, turning the talk away from Elsbeth.
"She may," Gautier said casually. "There is no way to tell until the child is loosed from her. I have seen this many times."
"How many times a father are you?" Hugh asked out of courtesy if not curiosity.
"This will make eleven, I think. What matter the number unless they come loose living, kicking free of the womb, grabbing hold of life with both hands? Of living children, I have eight. Of living wives, I have one," Gautier said, laughing.
Hugh smiled along with Gautier, but the urge to laugh was far from him.
* * *
"Your flow is still strong, Elsbeth," Emma said in sympathy.
"It is but the second day," Elsbeth said. "I know how my courses run. I am not dismayed."
Nay, hardly dismayed. Overjoyed. She needed this blood, this time, to gather her resources and her strength, for Hugh awaited on the other side of her flux and she was much afraid that she would not withstand his assault. In truth, she was near certain that she would be near helpless against it.
Never had she imagined the power of desire, the pulse of need and wanting that crowded out all thoughts but one. Possession. Surrender. This was what her mother had tried to explain to her. This was the danger of men. This need was what drove women to lay their bodies down, their very wills subject to the throbbing want that pounded in their hearts and bodies. This need, this damning need, was what destroyed them. She understood better now. And from understanding would come strength.
"You are not dismayed," Emma said with a small laugh, "but is the question not whether Hugh is dismayed? A man does not think to have to wait on his wedding night, nor on any other night, as to that. What did you do all the long night? I know he stayed with you, which is more than Gautier would have done, but how did you pass the long hours of the dark?"
Elsbeth looked at her father's wife from across the chess board. She did not want to talk of what men and women did in the dark. She did not want to remember the sweet torment of last night. She did not want to stir those memories, those feelings, to remembered life.
"If you do not tell me, I will imagine all sorts of delicious things," Emma said, moving a pawn.
Her imaginings could not be more delicious, or dangerous, than the reality of that night, yet Elsbeth could not admit that either.
"We talked," she said.
"All night?"
"We also slept."
"Together?"
"Of course, together. There is but one bed," Elsbeth said a trifle sharply.
"And the bed is not overlarge," Emma said, grinning. "He must have... touched you, then. Did you like it?"
"Have we not already agreed that my flux is still rampant? There was little of touching."
"Little, but some?" Emma said cheerfully. She was the most irrepressibly cheerful woman, but then, that would serve her well in her marriage to Gautier.
"Some," Elsbeth said, moving her queen to a position of more ready aggression.
"Really," said Emma with overt and obvious interest "Tell me. Tell me everything. He really is a man of courage not to be put off by a woman's blood."
"He did not touch me there." But he almost had, this morning. Was it courage or foolishness that prompted him?
"Then where? Tell me," Emma said, her eyes avid and alight. Her life really must be deadly dull to want such information. "Your breasts, I would guess," she said sagely. "You have fine, shapely breasts."
"Emma!" she said, horrified. "I will not discuss this. We should be at our prayers."
"Sext is not for hours," Emma said. "So, did he fondle you?"
"Your king is in peril," Elsbeth said, looking down at the board.
"My king is yours if you tell me what happened." Elsbeth looked up at her, surprised beyond words. "My life is empty now, waiting for this child to come forth. Your father keeps his distance. Denise, Warkham's fosterling, is still at her playthings; she is no companion and too young to train to anything more than needlework. Talk to me, Elsbeth. I need a woman in my life."
Elsbeth could understand that. A woman's life was better and more happily spent with other women. Which described the abbey life very well.
"Could we not talk of other things?" Elsbeth said.
"What else is of more import than your wedding night? This night will live in your memory for all your days. Do you not wish to speak of it?"
That was her fear, that it would live in her memory for all her days. She did not want to think of his eyes on her, his hands on her, his mouth tasting her, because if she did, then she remembered all he made her feel. Her body had been traitor to her will. 'Twas not a pleasant memory. Yet it was a memory that burned slowly in her thoughts, smoldering like embers, too ready to flash to brilliant life.
She could not take such memories into the nunnery with her, and she would not foul Sunnandune with them.
"It was not a wedding night, not the way the church defines," she said. "I have naught to say. We talked, he was kind and patient, we slept when the night was old. There is nothing more to say."
Emma sighed and shook her head. "That is too bad. A wedding night should be more. But never despair, your flux will pass and then you will have a night to remember."
Elsbeth sighed and nodded, glad for the passing of this questioning.
"So," Emma said, considering her next move, "did he kiss you?"
* * *
"What did she tell you?"
"Very little, my lord," Emma said.
"Did he touch her?" Gautier asked.
"Aye, but her blood still flows strong. There is naught he can do till it passes."
They stood at the hearth in their hall, the tables stacked along the wall. It was hours yet till the meal, and the hall was near empty. Still, they kept their voices low. This was not a conversation for other ears.
"Yet he did touch her," Gautier said softly, stroking his chin. "She is very like her mother; touching may well have broken passion loose in her. Did she seem distraught?"
"Elsbeth? I do not think it in Elsbeth to be distraught. She did not like my questions, that is all I am sure of," Emma answered.
"So, he waits until her blood stops," Gautier said, looking off into the shadows of his hall. "Well, there is nothing for it but to wait. Hugh thinks he knows what he is about, how to win her. Whether he speaks true or nay, Elsbeth will show us. I do not like this waiting."
"Nor does Hugh, I
would say," Emma said.
Gautier smiled down at his wife. "You say that aright. This is a wait no man likes, yet we must each face it, month upon month."
"We women face it, too. I do not like the time spent without you," Emma said, leaning into him.
Gautier only smiled and rubbed a hand down her back.
* * *
"This waiting is most hard, my lord."
"Speak not to me of hard, Raymond. I ache even now," Hugh said, throwing his squire a casual grin.
"Yet the marriage is legal, is it not, my lord? None can be blamed for non-consummation."
"None can be blamed, and yet the marriage is not consummated. I cannot think that the church would honor any claim to dissolve this union, her flux being an act of God and nature. Yet, without penetration, my claim is tenuous."
"She would not deny you," Raymond said, his eyes alight with fervor at the implied insult.
"I do not think it is in her to rebel against both her father and her husband, yet she does not want to be a bride. Her maiden state suits her temper very well," Hugh said.
He and Raymond walked the land just outside the gates of Warkham. It was a damp day, as all English days seemed to be. The town of Warkham was a single street, muddy and rutted, not worth the title "town" at all, a blemish upon the earth when held in comparison to the towns of Outremer. There, a town had a thousand years to sink down roots and grow into a flourishing settlement that welcomed all. Here, a piss pot had more permanence.
Raymond had come with him the long distance from Jerusalem and was of that land, as Hugh himself was. They shared the same mind on many things, and Raymond knew why Hugh had come north and approved the deed. All who knew Baldwin must approve his purpose here, and Raymond loved Baldwin as well as any man.
"You can change that with a smile and a sigh, my lord. All the maidens of Jerusalem attest to that," Raymond said.
"But we are not in Jerusalem, Raymond," Hugh said, "and this English bride does not fall to a smile. Her heart is of firmer fiber, though she be a woman still."
