by Linda Sole
When she did her lover spy
With a hey nonny, nonny no…’
His song went on to tell of the lady slipping away to lie in the meadows with her lover. Rhoda tapped her foot to the music, enjoying the song until the troubadour came to the end and she understood that the lady was wed to a noble she did not love and had been betraying him with another man.
There was silence in the hall as the song finished. Rhoda’s cheeks were hot as she gazed down at her platter, concentrating on the dish of sweet plums she had chosen. She felt as if everyone in the hall was staring at her and was suddenly afraid that they all knew she had once behaved shamelessly, much as the lady in the song with her lover.
They could not know. Only Kerrin knew the truth and he would not betray her. Fortunately for Rhoda, a fiddler had begun to play a tune and some of the men had got up to dance. Rhoda watched and smiled. At home she had sometimes danced with her father or Kerrin but she did not dare to suggest to the earl that he should dance with her and he did not ask if she wished to dance.
As the evening wore on, the men seemed to become louder and more ribald in their jests. They had been drinking steadily all evening and she could not mistake some of the gestures they were making to each other. Her cheeks grew hot again and she became uncomfortable. How much longer must she stay here and be the butt of jokes she knew were not fit for a lady’s ears? Why did the earl not call a halt? Glancing at him, she saw that his expression was reserved, as if his mind were far away.
‘May I be allowed to retire now, my lord?’
The earl suddenly seemed to focus on her. His gaze narrowed, as if he had become aware of her discomfort, then he inclined his head.
‘The men have forgotten the respect due to my lady. Forgive me. This will not happen again. Go now, Rhoda – and take your woman with you.’
Rhoda obeyed instantly. She was aware that all eyes were upon her as she signalled to Joanne and walked behind the other men seated at the high board. Sir Jonathan glanced at her, inclining his head. He did not look as if he had drunk as much as the others. When someone made a rude whistling sound and another called out a ribald jest, Jonathan stood.
‘Silence! Show some respect to your lord’s lady or you will answer to me.’
The whistling stopped and there was silence until after Rhoda had entered her chamber and then she heard some laughter. She shuddered, suddenly aware of what she had done. Until this moment she had hardly thought about her duties to her husband. The earl was a fine man and she thought he would be strong and virile but would he be gentle with her? He had hardly cast a glance her way since they left the chapel after the wedding.
‘Let me help you disrobe, my lady.’
Joanne came towards her, unfastening the fine leather girdle she wore loosely on her slender hips. Rhoda stood absolutely still as her surcoat was removed and placed carefully on top of a carved oak hutch. Then her tunic was untied at the shoulders and slithered to the floor. This too was removed and folded carefully; then the hanging sleeves were unfastened and the under tunic. Rhoda was now clothed only in her shift. Joanne brought her a filmy garment, which she slipped over her head, removing her shift as the night chemise slid down over her body.
She shivered, feeling vulnerable and uncertain. Rhoda had felt it would be easy to lie with the earl, because he was so strong and handsome, but now she was anxious. He was concerned that she was chaste and had seemed to disapprove when she clung to him. Should she offer herself to him or simply lie still and allow him to do as he would with her?
The safest way would be to wait for him to guide her in his wishes. Kerrin had begged her to touch him; he had loved to hear her cries when he pleased her, but instinct warned Rhoda to be careful. She must show modesty and perhaps some fear when the earl came to her.
Climbing into bed, she pulled the sweet-smelling sheets up to her neck. How long would it be before her husband joined her? Did it hurt to lose your maidenhead? She would have liked to ask Joanne questions but did not wish to appear foolish.
‘You may go,’ she said as the girl hesitated. ‘I have all I need.’
‘You should not fear, my lady. The earl is a fine man.’
‘Thank you. I know.’
Rhoda closed her eyes as the woman went out. The earl was a fine man but he was not Kerrin. She was swept with a wave of bitter regret. Why had her lover not been rich enough to give her the life she craved?
She heard a commotion outside her door and realised the earl’s friends had escorted him to her room. Would they insist on witnessing the consummation? She knew it was often the custom and prayed it would not happen.
When the earl entered alone, Rhoda drew a breath of relief. He had spared her that much. She swallowed hard, her throat dry. His eyes were on her. He was noticing her now. There was a look of lust on his face that frightened her. She schooled herself not to cry out or protest whatever her did.
‘Welcome, my lord,’ she whispered as he approached the bed. He still had on the tunic he had worn earlier for he had not changed into a bed-gown.
His hand reached out to grasp the covers. He pulled them back and stood staring down at her. She knew that the fine material of her night-robe did not hide her body from him. Nerves knotted her stomach as she waited for him to touch and caress her. Surely it could not be so very different from what had happened with Kerrin? He knelt on the edge of the bed. His hand reached for her nightgown; he lifted it, pulling it up over her face and head. Then she felt him move. Now he was lying on top of her. He reached down to part her legs. She made no resistance, expecting him to fondle her but two fingers pushed inside her. The suddenness of it made her gasp. She was not ready for him and because she was dry he hurt her.
‘Forgive me. I must hurt you,’ he said and then she felt something warm and hard against her inner thigh. The next moment he thrust into her with a grunting sound. The shock of his entry startled her for she had not imagined he would enter her without giving her pleasure. The pain as his huge member broke through her maidenhead was terrible and she screamed. He was hurting her so much.
His thrusting was frantic and soon over. He groaned as the climax came and he spilled himself inside her. Then he lay on her for a moment, his weight crushing her into the mattress until he moved away. For a moment he lay on his back. Then he turned his head to look at her.
‘You were virgin. Forgive me. I had to be certain. Next time I shall be gentle with you.’
‘I did not expect it to happen so soon. You did not kiss me.’ She said and could not keep the resentment from her voice.
Robert looked the bed and stood looking down at her. ‘I shall try to be tender, Rhoda but I do not love you.’
‘You love her – the wife who died?’ Her voice was accusing. ‘Why did you wed me?’
‘I need an heir. I thought I could forget and love again but I was wrong. I should have sent you to a nunnery.’
Rhoda closed her eyes, holding back the bitter tears. She heard the door open and close behind him. He had gone to his room.
Was this all there was to marriage? It would not have been so with Kerrin. Hot tears filled her eyes and ran own her cheeks. She had sent Kerrin away. She had broken his heart and now she must pay the price of her vanity.
PART THREE
ELEVEN
‘Your meal is ready, husband,’ Anne said. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you at your work, but supper is on the table and you have not eaten since this morning.’
Nicholas turned to look at her. She was so beautiful that she made his stomach tighten with desire, and the scent of her perfume aroused his senses to a pitch where he found it difficult not to take her by the hand and lead her to the bedchamber. The swathe of white in her hair had developed into a broad band that framed the left side of her face; against the dark red it was startling and made her beauty even more exotic. Even now he could hardly believe that she had lived through the ordeal that had so nearly robbed her of life, but she was perfectly well aga
in, glowing with life and health.
Only her memory remained elusive. Since just before their visit to the fair she had begun to order his house, taking on the role she assumed was hers as his wife. He had neither said nor done anything to disabuse her of that belief, for he thought now that perhaps her memory might never return.
Nicholas’s love for both Iolanthe and her mother had intensified as the months passed, becoming so firmly entrenched in his heart that he could no longer bear to think of losing her.
His first wife, Iolanthe, for whom he had named the child, had been unwell all through her childbearing and died as she struggled to give birth to a malformed babe when she was no more than seventeen. Nicholas had worked frantically to save her but she had bled to death and he had been unable to prevent it. He had lain by her side for days, holding her and weeping. In the end, when her body began to decay, they tore her from him. Nicholas had fought desperately to hold onto her but they had taken her body and given her a Christian burial. Angry and half out of his mind, he had shut himself up in his rooms, hardly eating and blaming himself for her death.
Nicholas had always done what he could to nurse the sick. From an early age he had taken an interest in disease and sickness, studying at the great school of medicine at Salerno, but he had soon become disillusioned with conventional thinking. As the years passed he had begun to experiment, using things many others thought too dangerous. He refused to accept the common belief that those who suffered from madness were visited by demons and more than once had opened a man’s skull to remove growths or clots of blood that were pressing against the brain. The patients usually died for such work was not truly understood but one man had lived. Half his face was paralysed and his speech was slurred, but he survived.
As time passed Nicholas grew careless of opinion, reckless, seeking out the wretches who lived in poverty and could not afford to pay for a physician’s help. He rebelled against the suffering he saw and the way the church condemned those who sought to find new kinds of medicines. Too often the sick were told to endure by an unfeeling priest, and to pray for a miracle; he pitied the pilgrims who went from shrine to shrine hoping for a cure and suspected many so-called miracles of being contrived to convince the ignorant and trusting. Yet for years he had controlled his tongue, keeping his thoughts to himself. He might have continued to live on in Italy working and studying, but his enemy had whispered against him and he had been arrested, tortured with hot irons and whips and eventually condemned to death.
When he escaped to England, Nicholas had chosen to live in seclusion, but he had met Iolanthe when visiting the city of London to buy ingredients needed for his studies, and fallen suddenly and deeply in love. She was the daughter of an impoverished gentleman and her father had welcomed Nicholas’s suit. He courted Iolanthe and married her. When she told him she was carrying his child he had believed that his memories of the past could be forgotten, but Iolanthe had been too frail to bear a child and her babe had been malformed with a head too large for its body. It had never drawn breath, and Iolanthe had bled to death despite all he tried to save her.
After his wife’s death, he had begun to delve deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the human body, immersing himself in his work, studying until all hours of the night and learning everything he could. If he had known as much then as he did now perhaps he might have saved his wife.
The months since Anne had come to him had been the best of his life. He adored the child, who was always eager for anything that she could reach out and touch. Before she was a year old she was crawling everywhere and she took her first tottering steps at thirteen months.
He fell into the habit of having her with him, carrying her in a sling on his back when she was small and setting her down on cushions when he worked as she grew older. Iolanthe crawled about his rooms, touching books and watching him with a curiosity that made him smile. She was his child and Anne was his wife. He could never give either of them up.
As he followed Anne to the small room where their supper was laid that evening, he felt the kind of contentment he had never expected to experience. He knew that he was not a handsome man; the scars he bore would never fade entirely but Anne seemed content in her way and Iolanthe loved him. She cried for him and was never happier than when she was in his arms.
Sometimes he saw sadness in Anne’s eyes and that pulled at his heartstrings. He would renew his efforts to find Iolanthe’s twin but he knew it was unlikely after so much time had passed.
Watching as Anne served the food, he was stung with guilt.
‘Are you quite well now? Is there anything you need?’
‘Iolanthe has all she needs and so do I. Some of my clothes did not fit well but I have altered them, and the cloth you bought me at the fair will make me a cloak and a gown.’
‘Yet there must be something you lack? More books perhaps? I have a copy of The Song of Roland somewhere or perhaps the Chanson de Recontre by Moniot d’Arras would please you?’ He smiled and quoted, ‘Ce fu en mai, Au douz tens gai…is that not how it begins? Would you like that, Anne?’
‘Only if you read it to me in French.’ Anne’s eyes were steady as they rested on him. ‘I should like you to work a little less in the evenings, Nicholas. I think I should like to play music…a harp perhaps. Did I play before I was ill? I think sometimes that I did.’
‘I believe there is a harp in the storeroom. Shall I have it fetched for you?’
‘Yes please.’ Anne looked puzzled, as if she were reaching for a memory that would not come. ‘I believe it would be pleasant to have music sometimes – and we might play chess or draughts together when the nights are long and cold.’
‘It would be pleasant to have music,’ he agreed. ‘And I enjoy a game of skill when I have time.’
How much did she recall of her past? He knew that the mind worked in mysterious ways for he had read extensively the writings of monks and healers, learning of cases where people lost their memory. Despite the general attitude of the church there were others like him, men who sought answers and refused to accept the doctrine imposed on them.
Perhaps it was selfish of him but he wanted Anne to stay the way she was, beautiful, mysterious and gentle, her first memories of his care for her. She was grateful to him for saving her life but if she discovered the truth she would leave him.
Eating his meal, Nicholas felt the fear turn inside his guts. He must make Anne happy so that she would not try to remember. He would not let himself think of the man who was her husband. If the Earl Devereaux had loved his wife he would not have left her alone and at the mercy of his enemies. Devereaux had deserved to lose his wife and child. Anne and Iolanthe were his. They would have died if he had not cared for them so they belonged to him. He would not give them up.
Hearing the sound of laughter, Nicholas looked over his shoulder. The stench of sulphur was strong and choking, filling his lungs.
‘Can you smell it?’ he asked when Anne looked at him inquiringly. ‘I think there must be a dead rat, somewhere behind the wainscot perhaps.’
‘What kind of smell?’ Anne sniffed and then shook her head. ‘I can smell only this good roast pig, Nicholas. Why do you think there is a stench?’
‘It is just my imagination.’ Nicholas pushed away his plate and stood. ‘I have a patient to see. He has a stone and the pain is so bad that he has asked me to cut for it. I shall not be late but do not wait up for me.’
Striding away, Nicholas could not quite contain the shudder that took him. Of late he had heard the laughter and smelled that foul stink more often. If he were a superstitious man he might have thought that the Devil stood at his shoulder.
*
Anne ate only a few mouthfuls of the meal she had so lovingly prepared. She was conscious of an ache in her breast. Had she made Nicholas angry? Was that why he had asked if there were a dead rat and left abruptly without eating his meal? It hurt her when he withdrew from her, because she could not be sure that he loved her, as
she loved him.
The knowledge that she loved her husband had become stronger recently. At first there had been merely gratitude and the sense of being cared for, but then she had begun to notice him as a man. He was tall and of a light, strong build. His hair grew softly in his neck and he often forgot to have it trimmed. She would do it for him if he asked, but so far he asked very little of her.
Anne summoned the servant to have the table cleared. The woman did her work quietly but did not stay to talk, disappearing with the platters, a look of disapproval on her face. Perhaps she thought it a waste of good food, but Anne knew it would not be wasted. The meat that Nicholas had pushed aside would be given to one of the stream of beggars that called at their door when the gates were opened once a day.
Going into her bedchamber, Anne removed her tunic and surcote. She poured water into a bowl and began to wash her body. As her hands smoothed over her breasts and then moved below to cleanse her most intimate places, she closed her eyes, her breath coming faster as she imagined Nicholas’s hands touching her where her own moved. A spasm of desire shook her and she licked her lips with the tip of her tongue.
She had been wanting something, hardly understanding her need or this aching between her thighs, but now she knew that it was her husband’s loving that was necessary to her. Too long had passed since she had lain in his arms. She had been ill, but she was well now. There was no reason for her to lie alone night after night. If Nicholas did not come to her soon, she would go to him.
Her shameless thoughts made her feel hot, for a modest woman did not seek out her husband for such a purpose, but perhaps she was the kind of woman who needed to be loved?
TWELVE
Marta was bending over the fire stirring the thick porridge for their breakfast when her brother came into the kitchen. He had not washed his face and looked bleary-eyed, his beard greasy and the stink of the alehouse on his breath.
‘You were late last night, brother.’
