The Maidenhead

by Parris Afton Bonds

  "’Oo did well when ’oo bargained with Walter for me.”

  Modesty noted that Rose had not exactly answered her question.

  “The boys?” She glanced around, searching for Mad Dog rather than the Bannock boys. Where had he gone?

  “They be with Walter, watching a juggler."

  She passed the baby back to Rose. “And Clarissa and her husband?”

  Rose pointed to the church. "Decorating it with flowers. Come on along. The Lady Clarissa will be filled with joy to see ’oo."

  Accompanying Rose, she drifted toward the church with reluctant footsteps. The desire to see Clarissa warred with her distaste for religion.

  Inside, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust after the bright sunlight. Then she saw Clarissa. The aristocratic woman stood beneath a boxlike pulpit set high on a pedestal and reached by a small flight of steps. She held an armful of spring flowers that she passed, one by one, to her husband.

  It took a moment for Modesty to realize what he was doing—braiding the flowers around the stair banisters. “A mite pagan, isn’t it, Reverend Dartmouth?”

  His gaze searched the back of the room. "Good morrow, Mistress Bannock.” Then surprise came to his face. "Mistress Jones? How farest thou?"

  "Modesty!" Clarissa deserted the pulpit and headed down the aisle toward her. Her husband followed in the wake of flower petals shaken from their stems.

  Modesty kissed her cheek. "Yewr beauty puts the flowers to shame, Clarissa.” She nodded at the yellow violet the minister still held and asked him, “Yew’re not afraid the villagers will burn yew for such sacrilege?"

  His smile was gentle. “Does not the Bible say that as a flower of the field, so a man flourishes?"

  "Does God say anything about a woman flourishing?”

  Rose rolled her eyes. “Modesty, ’oo 'ave not changed a whit."

  The minister held out the violet to her. “For you. Like the wildflower, you have flourished here in this garden wilderness. Or don’t you see it yet?"

  With suspicion she eyed the flower, then him.

  Clarissa smiled. "Give up, Modesty. A man of God is impossible to argue with.”

  Memories of harsh lessons taught by her Bible-quoting stepfather set her mouth in a grim line. “Aye, I know.” However, she took the violet and tucked the stem underneath her cap, so that the yellow blossom peeked out just above her cheekbone. With three pairs of eyes upon her, she felt self-conscious. “Well, me husband has wandered away. I shall see yew all anon.”

  With Mad Dog, she never knew what to expect. If he were like any of the other menfolk that day, he could be drinking, gambling, or wenching. But he wasn’t like any man she knew.

  She refused to go in search of him like a scold. Instead, she would make the most of enjoying the celebration. She mingled with the people, taking in everything. The smell of wild goose turning on a roasting spit. An unpinned dog in heat. Boys pitching horseshoes or participating in foot races. Girls playing tag. Old men competing in ninepins Young men staging bouts with cudgels.

  Watching grown men foolishly contend to catch a greased pig brought laughter to her lips—which was her undoing.

  A pug-nosed man in a flat cap, obviously inebriated, grabbed her hand. "Here she is! Our comely queen for May Day!”

  She tried to tug away, but he held fast. He was adamant about proclaiming her the May Day Queen in an even louder voice. “May Day Queen! May Day Queen.”

  Others took up his refrain. She found herself being led by a procession of revelers toward the May Day pole, standing in a field of strawberries. Their gaiety was contagious. Off came her coif, down came her hair. Laughing, she let one country maid crown her with a wreath of flowers.

  Then, holding one of the ribbons streaming from the pole’s top, she joined with a dozen other merrymakers dancing and frolicking around the Maypole until it was covered in bright ribbons.

  Gasping with laughter, she collapsed on her back in the strawberry-scented field alongside a reveler, the very man who had proclaimed her queen.

  The mirth bubbling on her lips died away as she stared up into Mad Dog’s glowering eyes.

  "Are you finished cavorting?”

  He always had to go and ruin everything. She sprang to a sitting position and tugged her skirts down over her stockinged calves. "Aye!" Anger boiled up inside her and scalded her tongue. “I am finished with yew!”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Thoughts of a prurient nature occupied Mad Dog’s mind. Persistent visions of Modesty’s lithe, nubile body had been there for a month now, since May Day.

  He had spent that May Day in conversation with John Rolfe, discussing important matters. After a year under Yeardley’s relaxed rule, the colony was being given a new governor, Francis Wyatt. What the planters were most afraid of was the restoration of the arbitrary government that had existed before the General Assembly of 1619, when the king could do what he liked.

  Mad Dog realized that, like the planters, the outside world could and would intrude upon his self-imposed isolation and would affect his life. He realized that he could no longer remain apart from humanity.

  He also realized that he found his wife highly desirable, since that May Day when he had watched her abandoned dancing. She was no longer the spitting cat with claws unsheathed in protection. She purred, she stretched languorously, her tiny tongue licked her lips as if in replete satisfaction. What had happened to her anger?

  He could not take his eyes off her, and he knew she knew it.

  Instead of moon watching, he watched her.

  Watched her budlike breasts. Were they fuller these days?

  Watched her taut stomach. Was there a slight curve to it?

  As if his thoughts summoned her, he spotted her moving down the grass-worn path toward the springhouse. He remained sitting, his back against its stone wall. He had chosen the spot because it was the coolest, with the water running through shallow troughs dug into the springhouse’s dirt floor. The “brummph" coming from inside told him that a bullfrog had found a home for the warm June evening.

  "Wot are yew doing?” she asked. He couldn’t tell if she was surprised or not by his presence. In her arms she toted a crock of butter.

  He removed the long pipe stem from between his lips. “Moon watching."

  “Wot?" Real curiosity underlay her question. She drew nearer, only an arm-span away. Her stocking-clad ankles could be seen from beneath the hem of her underskirts. He raised his gaze to her face. Did her cheeks seem to have a soft glow? Were her eyes more radiant? Or was it his anxious imagination?

  “Moon watching. I would think that surely fairies, even ordinary ones like yourself, would be thoughtful moon watchers."

  She hesitated, then lowered the crock and dropped down beside him. Her blue serge skirts clouded around her. "Remember, 'tis not wise to mention the fact I am a fairy, or I shall disappear.”

  Was she teasing or had she gone as mad as he and truly fancied herself a fairy? He could never quite tell about her. She could be a damnable irritation.

  "So what is this business about moon watching?" She drew her legs up against her and folded her arms around her knees.

  “’Tis serious business here in the colony," he said with a straight face. He, too, could indulge in the fancy of the backwoods people. "For instance, the best time to cut brush is in the months of June through August, when the old moon that day is in the sign of the heart."

  She nodded, as if prompting him to continue.

  "Well, pole beans should be planted when the horns of the moon are up, to encourage them to climb, but a building must not be roofed then, for the shingles will warp upward.”

  He glanced at her to see how much of what he was saying she fully believed. Her face was turned partially away, her gaze, raised to the moon. Her hair was gathered beneath her coif, and her neck was bare to his avid eyes.

  He cleared his throat and went on. "During a full moon a slaughtered cow will give juicy meat, and during a waning m
oon a slaughtered pig will produce only dry meat. Under a new moon a man should hay his meadows, but not—”

  "What about during the dark of the moon?" She shifted her gaze to him. “What should a man do then?” Waiting for him to speak again, her eyes lingered on his mouth.

  His voice sounded to him like the bullfrog’s just inside the springhouse. "A man should plant his root crop.”

  "And have yew done that?”

  “Aye.” He met her gaze and held it. “More than two months before, when I took you on the board table."

  The moon’s muted light could not conceal her heated blush. Swiftly she lowered her chin to her knees. “Wot if the . . . seeding . . . did not take?”

  He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her gaze to meet his. It seemed as though not a breath of a breeze stirred the sultry evening air. “I would plant again. And again.”

  She stared back at him. "Wot if I tell yew me body has already accepted yewr seed? Then would yew leave off planting?" Once more, her voice was inflected with curiosity.

  "I know your body very well. Better than you." He searched her face and regrettably found his answer. He released her chin and touched her bottom lip with his forefinger. “You are still ripe for planting."

  Her wide triumphant grin revealed bright teeth. "But 'tis not the dark of the moon."

  He ran his thumb over her bottom teeth, so charmingly uneven, as was her breathing. “Mayhaps not, but by the days I have reckoned, 'tis nonetheless your fertile time."

  Her eyes grew wide.

  He grazed his lips against hers and whispered in a voice that was husky with urgent desire, "I had thought to come to you later tonight, in our bed, but here is just as well, where the soil is fecund and the moon can watch.”

  Her eyes were smoky with the same desire that possessed him and which he knew he had awakened within her. “I think I would not conceive if I truly found your touch distasteful."

  “Can you deny that 'tis good, this passion that links us?”

  “’Tis unnatural," she whispered.

  "’Tis as if we are obsessed." There was no other way to explain such an unlikely coupling as his with this low-born woman. He didn’t give her a chance to speak but cupped her small face in his hands and buried his tongue between her lips.

  She made a soft noise that seemed to him to be half sigh, half whimper.

  He tore off her coif and pushed his fingers through her soft curls. By now he was past all restraint. He caught her shoulders and pressed her sideways until she lay beneath him. The scent of fresh, damp soil filled his nostrils. And her scent. Sweet, light.

  Her arms slipped up around his shoulders. She broke loose from his rapacious kiss. Her breathing was raspy. "Can you deny that yew love me?”

  He raised his head. "Love you?"

  Her mouth twisted. Her eyes were bleak. "I can see that the thought has never crossed yewr mind."

  “No," he said bluntly.

  Her body squirmed beneath his. "Let me up.”

  “No. Wait." He anchored her wrists against the earth. "You’re not given to foolish sentiment, are you?" He heard the doubt that had crept into his own voice. "Surely you are not in—”

  "Nothing has changed, has it?” she said in a tone as harsh as lye. "So, am I still allowed to leave when we get to Jamestown?”

  She deserved honesty. "Things have changed. I want a son from you.”

  Her breath hissed. "Wot?"

  He rolled off her and onto his back. He flung a forearm across his forehead, stared sightlessly up at the mocking moon. '"Tis my second chance at righting a grievous wrong. I will not let this opportunity slip through my fingers.”

  She tried to push herself upright, but his right leg still pinned her to the ground. She half twisted toward him. Those oddly colored eyes blazed. “Yew would breed me as yew would yewr—yewr heifer?”

  He moved away to sit up, his legs spread and his arms braced on his knees. He massaged the bridge of his nose, letting his fingers follow the flare of his brows to knead his throbbing temples. "I want another son."

  “No wonder they call yew Mad Do—another? Another son?"

  “Aye.” He buried his face in his palms. His ragged voice was muffled. "My son would have been nineteen this year. The same age I was when he was born.”

  "He died in the birthing?"

  "No.” He raised his head. His hands knotted together, he stared like a blind man into the nightmare of the past. "Christopher was six years old when he died."

  "I am sorry," she said softly. "It seems so unfair when wee ones die, before they even have a chance to live."

  He went on, knowing that he must talk. After thirteen years, he had to uncage his monster. "I was the youngest ever to be appointed to the Star Chamber. It consisted of men from the King’s Council, a group of royal advisers. I was arrogant with my privilege and my power. Careless of the feelings of others, including my wife and Christopher. I had no time for them. I was busy consolidating my influence at the Court of King James, as was my rival, Richard Radcliff.”

  Her skirts rustled as she drew near him on her knees. “So that is where yew know the man."

  He glanced down at her piquant face. "What do you know of the Star Chamber?”

  She visibly shuddered. "It passes judgment without trial by jury. It uses torture to obtain confessions.”

  "Aye. The court is so named because it holds unregulated, secret meetings in the Star Chamber of Westminster Palace to try persons too powerful to be brought before the ordinary, common-law courts. King James used the Star Chamber to crush opposition to his policies.

  "It came about that William Lilbum, a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, was a devout puritan and wrote a seditious article attacking stage plays and actors in general. At the time, the queen was taking part in a rehearsal for a ballet, so an attack upon the Crown was implied. Everyone involved was arrested, from Lilbum himself to the paper’s publisher to the people involved in distributing the article.

  “It so happened that the Star Chamber was sitting during this incident. Radcliff offered up a perfunctory plea in behalf of the charged. I was surprised he accepted the thankless task, because it certainly wasn’t one that would gain him additional favor with James.

  “I saw the opening and immediately took up the opposition, determined to demonstrate my eloquence, my skill, my unswerving loyalty to the Crown. I demanded that everyone involved in the matter be executed that very day.

  “‘Everyone?’ Radcliff had inquired."

  He stopped. The image of Radcliff s guileless half smile would haunt him all of his life. Now the smile personified had intruded into his colonial sanctuary.

  "I should have sensed that something was amiss," he continued at last. "Radcliff acceded too easily to me. But my mania for power overrode my intuition. 'Everyone,' I replied. And in so doing I ordered my own son's death."

  He heard her quick inhalation.

  "You see, I had taken Christopher and his nursemaid with me to Westminster Palace that day." He paused, then forced himself to dredge up every ugly detail. "My wife and I had argued earlier that morning about the lack of attention I gave our son and her. Her carping annoyed me, and I refused to take her with me but brought him along. When I was summoned to the Star Chamber, I left him and the nursemaid in the Strangers’ Gallery to witness another debate."

  He paused, then said in a quiet voice, his words spaced by pain, "Somehow my son gained possession of one of the pamphlets. A palace guard caught him with it and arrested him."

  "But he was just a child!" she protested.

  He shrugged. His shoulders felt so heavy. “Children have their ears shorn off or their nostrils slit for stealing something as petty as a potato."

  "I know,” she said bitterly.

  “When I returned to the Strangers’ Gallery for Christopher, the hysterical nursemaid told me what had happened. I went at once to find my son, but he had already been taken to the Palace Yard and hanged."
<
br />   "And that is when yew went mad," she murmured.

  “Aye.”

  “Do you think that Radcliff was responsible for yewr son possessing the pamphlet?"

  "I never had the time to find out. I had to flee England." He grunted. “Regardless, I was the one who ordered my son’s death, not Radcliff.”

  "But yew didn’t knowingly do it!"

  "Does age or relationship make a difference? With careless cruelty, I condemned the guilty and the innocent. My son happened to be among the latter. Afterwards, I truly didn’t care any more one way or the other about blame or responsibility or honor or power. I simply didn’t care about anything."

  Or at least he had thought so . . . until he had seen Radcliff again at Jamestown.

  In the silence came the soft murmuring of water running through the springhouse troughs. After a moment, Modesty said, "Then—if yew are already married—we can’t be.”

  He heard the hope in her voice and took perverse delight in dashing it. "We can still enjoy the great comfort we derive from being married to each other," he said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. "My wife committed suicide that same day upon learning of Christopher’s death. She drank poisoned wine."

  He was irritated with himself that he had suffered a momentary weakness and revealed his soul’s torment to this wench he had taken for a wife. He came to his feet and stared down at her coldly. "Now you know. So give me a son and I’ll give you a divorce."

  She sprang up, her hands clenched at her sides. Her eyes glittered with scorn. "No wonder yewr wife preferred suicide. But if I thought we had to stay married, I’d put poison in yewr wine!"

  "If I thought we had to stay married, I would drink it."

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beneath the noonday sun, the curling hair on Mad Dog’s bare chest was damp with sweat. He was cutting thatch for roofing and then binding the bundles with hemp cord. His well-honed body moved with a modicum of effort.

  Modesty closed her eyes and shook her head to clear it of his tantalizing image. She wanted to hate him for using her, for teaching her the addictive pleasures of his lovemaking. She grumbled at her lot, but she had to admit he gave her care, safety, fairness, and bravery.