Wicked

by Jill Barnett

  Then she slipped away as if in a dream, to another place and time, where her body took her up to heaven and all the way back down again, over and over.

  From someplace far away she heard him shout her name, as if he were calling her back to him. He stilled inside of her, frozen, like he had died too. But she felt something warm inside of her.

  It came from him, the seed of his life. She could feel him release it. She lay there, under the weight of his slick and damp body, lay there in wonder and relief and an ecstasy that she would have never thought existed in the world.

  Together they lay there in quietude, just the two of them. He drew back and stared down at her. The look on his face was one of surprise. He did not have the tension she always saw there. He looked at her as if she were someone he did not know.

  “What is wrong?”

  He gave her a bit of a smile, then shook his head. “Nothing is wrong.” His thumb traced her hairline.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Differently.”

  “Am I?” He shook his head. “There is no reason. I think you imagine it, sweet.” He slid off of her and onto his side, his head resting on his hand and his elbow next to her ear.

  They said nothing for the longest time, then he said, “Your skin is so beautiful. It looks like these pearls.” He reached over her and took the pearls from the table, then laid them across her breasts and shoulders. His finger traced her shoulder bone, down her arm and over her ribs.

  She laughed. “That tickles. Stop.”

  “’Twas only a few moments ago you were making me swear not to stop. You are a fickle wench.”

  “Ah, you! I am no wench!”

  “No. You are my wife,” he told her with sudden seriousness. “My wife,” he whispered as if he had to do so to believe it.

  She stilled, her eyes fixed on him.

  He reached across her and threaded his hand through hers, and just held it. She lay there, listening to the even sound of his breathing. Soon his arm relaxed across her breasts, his hand still holding hers.

  “My husband.” She turned and watched as his eyes drifted closed.

  And there was nothing more, for a moment later they were both asleep.

  Chapter 30

  Sofia woke early.

  Her husband’s hands were all over her, touching and stroking her. They made love by the dim light of the rising sun, then rose to bathe and dress. It was late by the time they descended the tower stairs and moved along the hallways that led toward the hall, where all would break fast.

  They walked into the room, her husband’s hand on her back. The King and Queen were not there. As was their custom, they broke fast together in their private quarters. The servants had spent most of the early morning hours cleaning up around the guests, most of whom were either still drunk or suffering the after effects of their revelry, their heads down on the tables.

  Sofia had expected a few winks and some ribald humor, ’twas part of the wedding, and a part that most of the guests enjoyed. She was prepared for their attempts to make her blush, which she knew would fail, so that gave her some feeling of security. They would never know she was blushing inside.

  She was not prepared, however, for the sight before her.

  On the back wall, hanging over one of Eleanor’s fine tapestries, was the linen bed sheet from their wedding bed. An ugly brown mark stained the center of it, there for all and sundry to see.

  She stood almost rooted to the floor. Her stance was rigid. Tears of humiliation filled her eyes. She bit her lip and tried to tell herself it did not matter.

  She tried, but failed.

  It was no longer the custom to hang the bedding sheet as proof of the bride’s virginity. It had not been custom for her whole lifetime and a good twenty or more years before. To do so nowadays was a slap in the face of the bride, an insinuation that she was impure and had to prove to the world her virginity.

  She had stopped so suddenly that she could now feel Tobin’s startled look on her. For just one fleeting and horrid moment, she wondered if he had ordered this done.

  She turned toward him, afraid of what she might see.

  He was looking the wall. His shoulders went rigid as bricks. His hand gripped her arm all the more tightly.

  He cursed; it was vicious and angry.

  “Come!” he said to her in a half-growl as he pulled her to a seat at the table and forced her into it. “Sit.”

  He strode up to the wall and jerked down the sheet, then threw it into the great fire below, where it smoldered and burned until smoke billowed out into the room and turned the air gray and murky.

  Tobin drew his sword and turned, his feet planted squarely apart as he faced the room. “Who did this?” His voice was dangerously calm.

  Guests murmured among themselves. Some shook their heads. Others elbowed the sleepers, who looked up and stared in puzzlement at the bridegroom standing before all.

  Tobin’s voice grew louder and angrier, “Who did this?”

  Soon he was bellowing it over and over, his gaze moving from one person to another. He paused suddenly, then scanned the room. His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Where is my father?” He turned and moved to the stairs that led up to the private guest chambers above the hall.

  “Where is my father?” he shouted as he took the stairs two at a time.

  Sofia stood, grabbed a nearby servant. “Go fetch Earl Merrick. Quickly!”

  Tobin stood on the gallery above the hall, his hands on the balustrade, his sword in one of them. He looked all over the room below him. “Where is the bastard? Where?”

  He spun around and disappeared in the archway of the floor above, his voice echoing back down. “If you did this, old man, I will kill you here and now!”

  Merrick ran down the dark hallway, following the noise of shouting in the upstairs hall. He rounded a corner. A few feet away was an open door.

  “You bastard!” came the sound of de Clare’s angry voice.

  Merrick went inside and stopped.

  Tobin de Clare stood menacingly over a great tester bed, one hand gripping the woolen drape, his knee pressed to the mattress and his sword point pressed at his father’s throat.

  The earl was naked, lying stiffly in the bed and looking up at his son. His eyes darted to Merrick as he stepped into the room. Cowering against the wall with a sheet clutched to her was the young and lush wife of a petty nobleman.

  She looked at Merrick, shaking, her eyes frightened. “Save us! I swear he is mad!”

  “De Clare!” Merrick said. “Cease!”

  The woman began to pray quietly, calling on Mary to save her from the devil before them.

  Tobin turned to him. “You go, Merrick. Leave me to settle with him. You do not know what has happened.”

  “Then tell me.” Merrick took a step closer.

  “He humiliated my wife.”

  “Drop the sword. His is still your father. We will settle this without blood.”

  “Nay, I want his blood.”

  “You have my blood,” the earl said. “You can never rid yourself of it no matter how much you wish to, for it runs through your veins. You are my son. My death even at your hand will not change that.”

  “But I am not you, old man.” Tobin’s voice had a high and desperate sound to it, then he repeated it more quietly, “I am not you. I am not . . . ”

  “Tobin,” Merrick said in his calmest voice. “You cannot kill your father.”

  “He deserves to die.”

  “For what? For his lechery? Because he is weak and cannot walk away from a woman? That is no reason to kill him. You will damn yourself to eternal hell.”

  “So be it.”

  “You hate me enough that much, Tobin? Enough to damn your soul to eternal hell?” The earl watched him from a strained face, one that looked so much like his son’s. “Even I think that is a waste.”

  Tobin did not move. He just g
lared down at his father.

  They were so alike in looks that neither could deny the other. Merrick knew Tobin tried so hard not to be anything like the earl, but when he stood there, looking at father and son, it was like he was looking at hell and heaven, at two angels—one that had fallen and one that had not.

  “You paid some servant to hang our stained bedsheet in the Great Hall,” Tobin said through gritted teeth.

  “I did no such thing, son. What pleasure would I have in that?” The earl waved his hand at the woman in the corner. “My night was spent with more worthwhile pleasures.”

  The woman whimpered in the corner, still muttering her prayers to Mary, Mother of God.

  “Get away, you foolish slut!” Tobin tossed the woman her gown. “Go to your husband. You do not need Mary to save you if you sleep in your own bed!”

  The woman grabbed the gown and scurried out of the room, still praying and calling him mad as she ran down the corridor.

  Tobin turned back to his father. “Then who, if it was not you?”

  “I do not know. But it was not I.”

  Merrick moved closer. “Drop your weapon.”

  De Clare did not move, but stood there, almost as if he did not know what he wanted to do.

  Merrick took one more step and put his hand on Tobin’s taut shoulder. “Come, lad. Let us get away from here. I give you my word I will help you find who did this. But I believe him. Your father does not hide his vices. He is no trickster to do this behind your back. If he was going to humiliate you, he would do so in your face.”

  Tobin was taking slow deep breaths that went on for a long, long time. Finally he pulled back his weapon with a shaking hand and sheathed it, then wiped his palm on his tunic.

  The face he turned to Merrick was so contorted with pain and anger that Merrick himself wanted to run Gloucester through for what he had done to his son’s life. Instead he put his arm about his foster son’s shoulders and led him out the door.

  No one at Windsor remembered what servant hung the sheet. Too much celebrating; too little paying attention. With a wedding party of such a size, servants numbered in the hundreds, many hired or borrowed for the event.

  Thus, there was no one to bribe. In spite of this, Tobin blustered around the castle for most of the day, trying through intimidation to get information from anyone he could. He had no luck.

  Sofia did her best to push the image and the embarrassment from her mind. Tobin would not let it drop so easily and he grumbled and groused around until finally Earl Merrick and Lady Clio came to the rescue.

  They insisted that Tobin and Sofia come to Camrose for the winter, arguing that Torwick, Sofia’s dower castle, was scantily staffed and would not be stocked nor prepared for winter this late in the year.

  The argument was a solid one, one Tobin readily agreed to. He did so without even asking Sofia, and she was standing there at the time.

  “’Tis a fine plan, Sofia. You will be comfortable at Camrose. Merrick had license to crenellate from Edward years back and it is now one of the finest castles in the Marchlands, second only to Caernarvon.”

  “I was there, Tobin.”

  He looked up, surprised. “Oh. Now, I remember.”

  He had better remember the hoodman blind game, she thought. They first met at Camrose.

  “But you know that was before the work was completed. Now the walls are higher and the structures sound. No one could breach those walls. You should see the millworks and the armory. The crenels are solid as mountains. The moat is huge and a fine example of what a moat should be.” He paused and looked up. “Except for those silly swans Clio insisted Merrick add. And he did it, too.” Tobin shook his hard head. “None could believe it when he did. Swans in a moat. We were all awaiting the boat and oars to be next, then the enemy could row across at their convenience. Merrick took no little ribbing over those birds. But when it comes to Clio, Merrick is soft and bends to her wishes. He claimed the birds were worth it.”

  She spoke in the most innocent tone she could muster. “Does Earl Merrick ask her opinion?”

  “I suppose he does, for she gives it readily enough.”

  “Does he ask her opinion on matters that affect both of them?”

  “I do not know.”

  She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “Decisions like where they will live for the winter?”

  He turned and looked at her as if she had grown horns.

  There was a long moment of silence.

  “You are upset because I did not ask you about Camrose?”

  “Tobin. I was right here in the room. You acted as if I did not exist.”

  “I knew you were here.”

  She wanted to clout him. “Then why did you not ask me what I wished to do?”

  He looked at her for the longest time. “I am the husband.”

  She shook her head and frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “I make the decisions.”

  “I see,” she said through a tight jaw. “I am to have no say in any decision because I am not the husband.”

  “You are the wife. You have your own duties.”

  “Such as?”

  “It is your duty to obey.”

  She stood there fuming.

  “But that matters not, because I prefer to be with Merrick and Clio. They are close as family to me. I prefer being at Camrose to being anywhere near my father. As for staying here, Edward has been making noises about needing someone he could send off to Perth. I do not want to be that someone, Sofia.” He looked at her. “Did you wish to remain here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then why are we having this argument?”

  “We are not having an argument. If we were having an argument, you would know it, Tobin. I swear you would know it.”

  “You do not want to go to Camrose?”

  “I want to go to Camrose.”

  Now he really looked confused.

  She sighed. “I just would like to have been asked what I wished.”

  He grunted something, something just indifferent enough to get Sofia thinking.

  After that, they each spent most of the afternoon seeing to the loading of drayage wagons that would take their things to Camrose. For the whole afternoon, Sofia kept running back and forth to Tobin, asking him if they needed the goblets from the Earl of Chester or the silver server from the Baron Rupert or the tapestries from the nuns at Grace Dieu.

  It gave her no little pleasure to interrupt him as much as possible. Once the wedding gift decisions were made, Sofia moved on to her belongings. She had them all stacked outside the chamber door, including the trunk she received from Sister Judith.

  Sofia had been busy with something when she heard some men grunting and groaning. She went to the top of the staircase and looked down.

  Two of Tobin’s men-at-arms were struggling to get the trunk down the circular tower stairs.

  “Oh, you should have left that one. I shall get it.”

  The men stopped and exchanged an odd look, then one of them turned to her and looked up. “Begging your pardon, milady, but you would never be able to lift this trunk. ’Tis heavy enough . . . enough to be filled with armor!”

  The men laughed at the jest in that and Sofia stood there, wondering if they would be laughing so hard if they knew what they jested about was the truth.

  That chest held her armor.

  ’Twas later when Sofia found Tobin in the stables, getting the horses ready for the trip, checking shoes and equipment.

  “I was wondering,” she asked as he was bent over and rubbing his hand down the mount’s leg. “Which dress should I take with me? The blue or the scarlet?”

  Tobin looked up from beneath his mount’s flanks. “What?”

  “Which dress should I take to wear tomorrow? The blue or the scarlet?”

  He frowned. “The blue, I guess.”

  “Good. And which shifts should I pack? The linen and the silk or just the silk?”
>
  He looked dumbfounded.

  “And shoes. I must decide if I need my slippers or my boots or both.” She tapped a finger against her lips. “Of course then there is the choice of hair ribbons and jewels.” She looked at him. “I prefer the rubies, but then it is not my opinion that is necessary, for I am only the wife. The husband makes all the decisions. Husband? Which jewels should I take?” She had to grin, because he had fallen so easily into the amusing trap she’d set.

  He straightened, giving the horse a pat on the rear, then walked over to her, shaking his head. He put his hand on the small of her back, then let it drift down over her bottom as he bent his head and kissed her full on the mouth. He gave her a slight pat, too, before he pulled back.

  There was true amusement in his eyes when he said, “I should grab you, wife, right here and now, whip up your gown and beat you for being so impertinent.”

  Sofia arched an eyebrow at him, then turned and sauntered away, “Oh, promises . . . Promises . . . ”

  And Tobin laughed out loud.

  Chapter 31

  It was cider time, late October, when Camrose smelled like ripe apples and you could taste their sweetness in the air whenever you walked outside.

  Sofia was in the brewery with Lady Clio and Old Gladdys, the Druid and Camrose’s resident witch and troublemaker. She was a spry old thing, dressed completely in black, with white hair that stuck out like a dandelion puff and a face so ugly that once Earl Merrick claimed if you looked at it too closely you would go blind.

  But the old woman was as much a part of Camrose as Clio. And Sofia suspected that the proud old woman liked being so outlandish, basked in her oddities, and did so out of pure amusement and a sharp woman’s need to try to dupe the men of the castle.

  Tildie and Maude had come with them, for Clio’s young sons were napping that afternoon. The twins were like shadows around Clio and Sofia. It was good to be with them, to see how they had grown a goodly few inches. But it was not their growth in height and weight that made Sofia pleased; it was the growth in themselves, for they were happy, sweet little girls, quick to laugh and smile and easy to please, curious and sharp in mind. They looked at Lady Clio as if she were a goddess, emulated her actions and gestures, and Clio treated them like her own treasured children.