by Smith, Skye
"I ... I should cover myself,” he said, though for her modesty not his. In his village of Wellenhay they chose not to play the Christian modesty games. Such games were silly in a village of clanfolk where life revolved around the communal bath house and sweat lodge. In truth he was in no rush to cover himself, for her little squeezes felt delightful.
She looked down at his throbbing pint. Dare she? He was barely thirty while she would never see sixty again. Thinking of the age difference made her think of her husband, Robert, and she suddenly felt foolish. Robert Rich the Earl of Warwick preferred the company of lasses not yet twenty, and always looked a right fool while pandering to them. She let go of him and told him to finish bathing.
With one of the lamps in hand she went to inspect the stacks of neatly folded laundry. Carefully, so the stack would not tip over, she pulled out one of her husbands linen-cotton bedroom robes. When she turned, the change in angle of the light showed her that the front of her night gown was damp, and that her dark nipples were showing through it. The sight of her hard nipples gave her courage. Despite her sixty years she had kept her figure so her breasts still rode high, and her nipples still pointed forward. As she walked back towards Daniel she jiggled them with a naughty glee.
"Leave your clothes here to be cleaned, and put this on instead,” she said handing him the robe. "We can take some of Lydia's bread up to my chambers. My bed will still be warm and my fire is still glowing. I will heat you up some wine on the hearth."
The jiggling nipples had distracted him from drying himself. He had been given only one towel and rather than use it to dry, he was using it to cover his privates. She grabbed it away from him and rubbed him dry with it ... all over. "I can't go to your room,” he told her. "That would be most improper."
"Well I suppose you could use the empty bed in Teesa's room,” Susannah said with an eye cocked, waiting for her words to sink in.
"Why, where is Britta?" he replied. Teesa and Britta were his two step daughters, and were long time guests of Susannah's at this palace. Teesa the tomboy huntress and Britta the girly beauty. Susannah's husband was enamoured with Teesa, but she treated him like a father, rather than a lover.
"In Robert's bed as usual,” she told him, all the while watching his face for his response. "He spends his days and evenings with Teesa and his nights with Britta." This was a dangerous gamble she was taking. Daniel was a dangerous man, a very dangerous man. He had ridden with the Dutch Pistoleers for years, and during that time he had specialized in shooting Imperial officers. He was quite capable of shooting her husband. Yes it was a risk, but she had no choice but to tell him. It was better he heard it from her, rather than from the household gossip.
He stepped out of the basin and reached out to grab the robe that was hung on a peg beside the cistern, her robe, and then he exchanged it for the one she was holding. He slipped it on and then he went through his filthy clothes to gather his weapons and his two purses, the hidden one and the decoy one. Once they had blown out the lanterns, the walked into the kitchen to find some bread.
"Lydia, Captain Vanderus will be in my room," Susannah said, "but only you are to know that."
Lydia nodded as she filled a small basket with cinnamon buns ... cinnamon that she had bought from this captain on one of his prior visits, along with some other spices he had brought from the Netherlands. She did not curtsey or bow to the Lady. This house had thirty female staff, and she was madam's enforcer with them. She never bowed because one of her duties was to keep watch that everyone else bowed. She looked longingly at the Captain. It should have been her, not her Ladyship, taking liberties with this man's body.
Susannah led him up the back staircase and crept up the first flight so as not to wake anyone. From the sounds around that landing the house was waking in any case, so they hurried up the next two flights and along the corridor. They literally spilled through the door into her chambers, and she bolted the door behind them. She was smirking like a naughty young girl and she knew it. Young, that was the key word. She felt young again.
Another smirk shaped her lips. That was exactly what Robert always told her whenever she complained about his keeping the company of such young women. Their company made him feel young again, and he was five years her younger.
Daniel was not smirking. "Tell me more about your husband and Britta,” Daniel said as he pulled off his robe and slipped into the warmth of the grand bed. "He swore an oath to me that he would not molest them while they stayed with you."
Susannah took off her robe and draped over the chair in front of the standing mirror. Her nightgown was still damp. At her age women looked far better in their clothes than without them, so she skipped ... er... jiggled over to a tall cupboard. In the partial privacy of the cupboard doors she changed out of her linen nightie and into a silky one, one that didn't need to be damp to drape over her nipples. "He swore that he would not molest Teesa,” she replied. "That was before Britta came to visit."
"But he never showed any interest in Britta. Teesa, it was always Teesa with him. I just assumed."
"Daniel, how can you be that thick? Britta is one of the most comely women in all of London, and you know how Robert is drawn to young women. You should never have allowed her to stay here."
"I know, I know, but I had to let to stay. She has a dream of marrying a wealthy man. While staying her that dream had a chance of coming true. At the George Inn in Cambridge it had none. I just assumed that she would refuse to be his mistress because that would foil her dream."
"Mistress. Is that what you think. I think you over estimate my husband's prowess in bed. I'm quite sure she does a lot of cuddling and little, if any, mistressing. He likes their company because they keep him ..."
"Young. Yes, so he has told me many times."
"Having Britta as his bed warmer has kept Teesa from taking on that role," she told him as she joined him between the sheets and became a bed warmer herself. "He loves Teesa like a daughter, or rather, like a son. They used to just go riding and hunting together, but now she accompanies him where ever he goes in London. You know how she always carries that nasty sharp knife of hers, well now she carries a small pistol too. It is almost as if she is fashioning herself as his bodyguard."
"That sounds like Teesa,” he replied as he reached across her to grab a cinnamon bun. "When she sees something that needs doing, she lends a hand to it."
"A hand, yes, that is what she is ... a hand." She tried to steal some of his bun and that became a bit of a wrestling match, an intimate wrestling match. "I suppose she learned that from working on your clan's ships." She threw a leg across him and then rolled on top of him and held him down while she took a bite of the bun he was holding.
He let her stay on top, mainly because he was warmer that way. He knew that his throbbing pint was now lined up with her purse and with one push he could be inside of her, but he didn't push. While still a lad his clanswomen had taught him that it was the woman's decision of whether or not to connect, not the man's. Susannah didn't. Perhaps she was teasing, or perhaps she wasn't ready ... it mattered not and he didn't push it.
"I'm sorry,” he whispered to her. They were nose to nose and making smiles with their eyes. "Here I am all worried about Britta, and all the while it is you that is the injured party. Does having Britta in his bed upset you?"
"Oh faddle. Rather her than me. He snores and farts in his sleep. When I share a bed with him, I lie awake all night. Besides, she asked my permission first, and I gave it."
"But you and Britta were getting along so well,” he whispered. Susannah had taken country bumpkin Britta under her wing and dressed her in silk and taught her manners and the art of posing so that she wouldn't embarrass herself at all the fine parties held in this palace.
"And we still do get along. While Teesa is out and about with Robert, Britta and I are inseparable. Why are you making such an issue of it? Your daughters have told me all about your clan and all the wife swapping that goes on. Fo
r instance, I know that you have two wives, two sisters, two inherited widows, and they live quite happily together while they share you."
"Oh yes, and what else did they tell you?" he asked suspiciously.
"Well Britta tells me all the gossip while Teesa explains all the traditions. I think Teesa sees herself as becoming an elder or even a seer when she grows old. It has been quite, er, enlightening to a Presbyterian like myself. Especially the descriptions of the communal use of the bath house and sweat lodge. Perhaps its time this house had the like ... with the sexes kept separate by a bathing schedule, of course." His eyes were closed, and his breathing had deepened. He was asleep. She sighed and rolled off him and stared at the drapery that was hung around the bed.
A wide awake hour later the window brightened into morning. Daniel was still asleep beside her. She lifted the covers slightly so she could stare at his long muscular body. His skin seemed to glow with health. Teesa had told her that most of the clan had such glowing skin and that tall lithe build. It came from a diet of fish and dairy, a thousand years of eating fish and dairy.
Teesa had also told her that the clan was bound and determined to leave their damp village in the fens of Cambridgeshire and move to the tropics. The clan elders were convinced that the last few years of frigid long winters were just the beginning, and that such winters would be normal for decades to come. She dropped the covers down again, because there was a cold draught sweeping down the windows and across the room. Perhaps it had been a mistake to have all these large windows installed.
She reached for her robe and put it on under the covers, which was difficult to do without nudging Daniel awake. Let him sleep. He was so exhausted that he hadn't even tried to hump her, despite her teasing. Once the robe was snug around her, she rolled out from under the covers and stepped into her slippers. Rather than call a char into the room, she went herself to stoke the fire with more chunks of coal. The heat from coal was wondrous, but she hated the oily smell and the filthy smoke and dust.
On icy days like this she would never venture out into London. On icy days the yellow-brown smoke that hovered above the city would drop down to street level. She had no desire to breathe such foulness. On such days the entire city would be set to coughing, endlessly coughing up the foulness that got into their lungs. It was most unusual for her to even be in London in the winter, for usually they went to one of their many country houses either in Essex or in Warwickshire or in Somerset, depending on which estate or business required Robert's attention. But not this year.
The countryside was no longer a safe place for reform parliamentarians. The king had too many agents in the country, and the king wanted the reformers stopped. Permanently if necessary. Robert and the rest of the reformers were far safer in London than anywhere else, especially now that London was not safe for the king. Even in his palaces the king was longer safe from the London mobs who blamed him for the brutal poverty in the hard streets of the city.
Which reminded her that this would be a busy day and it was passed time that she were dressed. Her dresser knew better than to knock when her door was locked and by now she would be sitting on a chair outside the door so that no one else would knock either. From her cupboard she chose a very subdued, very humble dress for today she must arrange for a gift of coal to be distributed to the many streets that supplied volunteers to Robert's trained bands.
How ironic that the very thing that caused the foul air was the very thing that London needed most to survive this winter and the very thing that the poor could least afford. Coal was so dear these days. The Lords of Coal, the Hostmen Company, were still gouging London to recover the profits they lost to the Scottish Covenanter army which had had occupied Newcastle-upon-Tyne last year.
Something must be done about the coal, and not just the price of it. It was so filthy. It dusted everything in black. An hour on the streets and her white lace collar would be gray around her neck, and if she sat anywhere the dust would be carried back to her furniture. Even the rain water in the catchment barrels was tainted grey by the rain that fell through the coal smoke and onto the layer of dust on the roofs. For the poor, the rain water was their drinking water. She shuddered involuntarily.
She smoothed the plain dress down, and then put a homespun woolen smock over it, and then checked herself in the mirror. Merde, she looked like a grandmother, which she was. With a twist and a lift she pinned up her hair and then put a Puritan style bonnet on top of it to keep it in place. To the mirror she said, "That will do for now,” and then left the room quickly before the handsome captain saw her looking like a grandmother.
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The Pistoleer - Edgehill by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 2 - Storming the Tower of London, February 1642
Daniel woke up with a start when the covers were hauled away from him. In a panic he reached under the pillow for his small wheellock pistol but it wasn't there. What there was in abundance were peels of naughty laughter. "Get up you lazy dog, it's almost noon. We've been sent to dress you." Teesa told him.
"Oh, have a heart,” he said not bothering to cover his nudity. "I've been in the saddle for two days and nights, and I didn't get here until well after midnight." He rolled onto his side and put his head under the pillow. His legs, bum and lower back ached.
"Come on,” Britta said, "We've brought you some of juniors clothes. You know, Robert's son Robert. He is about the same size, though his legs may be a bit shorter."
Daniel looked out from under the pillow at his two step daughters. They looked like they were thriving. They looked happy. Why wouldn't they be happy. Last year they had been crude country lasses dressed in homespun and living in the Fens village of Wellenhay. This year they were city girls, dressed in silk and living in a palace. "So Britta, have you found a husband yet?"
Britta had been holding a formal coat high so he could see it, but now she lowered it so she could stare at him. "Susannah told you, didn't she. Well I don't want to discuss it. Better I give my favours to a grateful old man than to some eeler's son who always stinks of fish."
"Stinks of fish, you mean like an eeler's dotter, Britta Venkadotter?"
"Don't be disgusting,” Britta said, but Teesa who often went eel fishing, was laughing her head off. Despite her best efforts at being serious, the laughter was infectious and eventually all three of them were laughing. When she could gain her breath again she said, "Besides, you're one to talk. Look whose bed you slept in. Did you ask my mother's permission first? Eh? Eh? Eh?"
"Nothing happened. I just need to sleep." He looked at their disbelieving smirks. "Honestly." Then they were all over him. Hugging him, and kissing him, tickling him and trying to get him to fit into clothing that was just a bit too big around the waist and just a bit too short in the arms and legs. Eventually he was dressed, and he actually looked quite the city gent. He looked at himself in the mirror and said, "I should have shaved first."
"No need. London gents never shave anymore,” Britta told him. "They trim their mustaches long and twist them like rope, and trim their beards short and in a vee. Sit in front of the mirror and I will trim yours for you." He did not move, so she pushed him down onto Susannah's plush stool that faced the mirror, and then she found some sprung scissors in a drawer and began to shape his bushy seaman's beard.
"Has there been any news from Wellenhay?" Daniel asked while motioning to Teesa to share the last cinnamon bun with him. "If fear that the terps may no longer be tall enough."
"We had a letter from momma and auntie. Everything is fine in Wellenhay, but yes there are some damp floors,” she replied. The terps were the ancient mounds that Wellenhay's thatch houses were built upon so that they sat higher than the level of their low island, an island prone to floods. "Everyone there is a lot warmer than the folk of London, and they can breathe the air without coughing."
"I hate the air in London,” Britta said as she snipped away at his beard. "Robert keeps prom
ising to take everyone to his house in Bristol, but there is always a good reason to put it off. There is just too much politics going on in London."
"Are the rivers still frozen over?" he asked Teesa.
"No, but the ponds are. It's been an indoors winter so everyone is bored. It's a good thing Anso brought those Dutch schaatsen over from Holland, else no one would ever go out. He has the men playing ball and stick games while gliding along the ice on them." There were tears in the corner of Teesa's eyes. "I miss Wellenhay. I miss home."
"What can you possibly miss about that damp island?" Britta stopped snipping hair to ask.
"I miss the ... the ... community, the oneness, the simplicity. No, what I really miss is that everyone is true to who they are. Everyone I meet here are such posers, all pretending to be better than everyone else, or better than they are."
There was a sharp rap on the door and Robert Rich walked into the room. "Has Susannah already left for the..." he stopped in mid thought at the sight of Daniel, and the smile disappeared from his face. He shot a glance to Britta and she nodded. A momentary wave of panic rippled through him. "Has she already gone to dole out coal?"
"About an hour ago,” Teesa replied, and then crossed the room to hold the old man's hand. "Daniel rode in late last night and fell into bed exhausted."
"Grave news from the arsenal at Kingston?" Robert asked, relieved to be talking about anything other than his sleeping arrangements with Britta to her father, her very dangerous father.
"Only good news. Robert Blake and I captured Colonel Lunsford at his wife's family home so the situation at Kingston has been defused,” Daniel shot Robert a look to stop the question on his lips. "He went peacefully and did not try to escape. He agreed to send the king's horse guard back to Windsor if we would place him in the hands of a magistrate. By the way, we tricked him into revealing his orders. He hadn't been ordered to capture Portsmouth arsenal after all."
