by Grace Ingram
He sat up, thrusting his fingers through his hair in a distracted gesture. ‘It would never have happened if I’d resisted temptation—his offer of knighthood.’
Elswyth snorted. ‘If men could foresee the furthest end o’ their deeds, none of ’em’d do nothing but squat on their tailbones and howl. Take it back to its beginning, and it was him raped your mother to beget you.’
‘Yet the blame—’
‘Look, lad. It’s right you should grieve. It’s right you should look to your faults. But I reckon any priest’d call it vanity to take blame for his sins. You’re not that important.’
He gazed at her plump back as she stooped to lay on fresh logs, and her common-sense shifted some of the burden of his guilt. He swung his feet to the floor and looked up at Helvie.
‘And what of my word to your father, my lady?’ he asked grimly.
‘Now who had a better right to take you in?’
‘That was in ignorance of your presence, but I’ve since spoken words I’d no right to utter.’ He frowned at the floor, remembering that he was nothing, possessed nothing. ‘I forgot—’
She stood a moment, and then leaned to trace with one finger the faint mark she had left down his cheek. He tingled at her touch. ‘Forgive me that, Sir Guy. Later, I thought. There was no other boon you could give that poor captive.’
‘A quick end. But I never blamed you, my lady.’
‘Your habit, helping fools to your own cost.’ Her hand slid up his bristled cheek to his hair, and so startled him from his self-command that he caught it to his lips, heedless of the reverence owed her position, the obstacles between them, the watchful mother. Her fingers were roughened by riding and household tasks, and they trembled and then gripped fast. He gazed into her eyes, and her lashes fluttered and fell. A flush ran up her smooth throat, over her face to her brow, and her breasts rose in quickened breathing. His own heart thudded. She pulled free as if to flee, and then took his face between her palms, stooped and kissed him on the mouth. Then she ran to the doorway and caught up her spinning, her back to Guy and her fingers bungling the thread.
Stunned and marvelling, he was unable to move or speak. Elswyth placidly stirred the pot. Guy stared at Helvie’s bent head, more embarrassed than she was. A noble virgin moved in man’s presence with downcast gaze. No lewd word should reach her ear; she must be approached with reverence, her purity unassailed by any hint of carnal lust. So he had imagined, but his vision of bloodless virtue had been destroyed by Helvie’s kiss. It had been wonder and delight, but he knew her wholly innocent, and could not look her in the face lest she read the entirely carnal thoughts the contact had fired in him.
The thread snapped in her fingers, and she uttered a smothered ejaculation. The spindle bounced and rolled in an arc across the floor. They both moved for it, each glancing sidelong at the other. Guy saw Helvie’s mouth set in sullen lines that he realized all at once indicated hurt. He reached out a hand to her and she recoiled, her eyes brimming and her lips quivering.
‘My lady, what’s amiss?’
Elswyth gave them one look, picked up a wooden bucket and closed the door behind her.
‘I—I’ve given offence,’ she muttered, gripping her hands together against her breast. ‘But I never meant to—to disgust you by-by playing the wanton. Sir Guy, by God’s holy Mother I swear I’ve never kissed any other man but my father!’
‘My dear lady—’
‘You were so unhappy—I forgot all shame—’
‘It was the loveliest thing ever happened to me, my lady, and took my foolish wits away.’
‘Then—’ she choked, moved blindly to him and burst into tears upon his shoulder. Guy forgot all scruples, closed his arms about her, leaned his cheek against her warm hair and waited out the storm, shaken himself by feeling he had never guessed was in him. He slid one hand up to her nape and stroked her neck and hair. His heart hammered at his ribs, and hers beat against him; her sobs pressed her breasts to his. He kissed her hair, brought his hand under her chin and gently turned her face from the damp patch on his tunic.
She looked up. ‘I love you,’ she gulped.
He bent his head. The first kiss fell awry and was salt with tears, and then his mouth found hers, her hands came up behind his neck, and they clung fast until for bodily weakness he must draw back, jerking breath into his lungs.
‘My heart—my own lady—my dear love—’
She steadied him, and there was no shame in leaning on her generous strength. Helvie was wife and helpmate, no man’s plaything. Where she loved she would give all she was. Guy held her by the shoulders, gazing as though he had never seen beauty before; for him it was forever eyes between green and brown, tawny hair springing from a broad brow and mouth wide for laughter. Her hands clasped his arms, and as she blinked the tears from her lashes her lips quivered into a smile.
‘Helvie, you are all my joy on this earth, my heart’s love.’
‘And you are mine.’
A bucket clanked outside, and the latch rattled warning for them to draw apart. Elswyth surveyed them benignly, and Guy was guiltily aware that they looked like a pair of peasants surprised embracing on a haystack. Girls of Helvie’s quality were not tousled by reckless hands; they came untouched to their spouses between the sheets of their marriage-beds. His conscience prodded him; he had made his avowal, and his promise to Lord Henry was past repair. Elswyth made no rebuke, but set about serving supper.
Helvie sat beside Guy on the bed with her own bread and pottage. They plied horn spoons in silence, oddly shy yet with each other. Guy was conscious of every move she made, of the long swell of her thigh, the lift and play of hand and arm, the line of down-bent brow, cheekbone and jaw and the wrench of strong teeth as she worried the tough crust.
‘I have never learned to please men,’ she murmured to the spoon. ‘But—but I will try.’
‘Don’t. You please me as you are.’
‘Shameless enough to—to kiss unasked?’
‘You don’t fear I’d think any ill of your lovely honesty, my heart?’
‘I don’t fear you in any way,’ she assured him, lifting her face to smile at him. ‘I—I could never love where I couldn’t trust.’
‘May I always deserve it,’ he murmured.
Elswyth, who had paid no apparent heed to their whispering, rose to proffer a bowl of apples and hazelnuts, and by reminding them of her presence thrust convention between them. Her shrewd gaze pierced the mists that requited love had wrapped about Guy’s wits.
‘I know your intentions are honest, for you’ve told me them,’ she said. ‘But don’t go too fast. She is still her father’s daughter.’
‘There is nothing under heaven I desire more than to marry Helvie,’ Guy declared, but did not add that he saw no honest way under heaven of achieving that. He looked on reality, and that was so harsh that Helvie paused with a bitten apple half-way to her mouth to stare at his haggard face, and then laid her hand on his. He said nothing, merely gripped her fingers, and presently reached for an apple himself.
Later Guy slept, badly and under protest, on a pallet on the floor, and rose more resolute to enforce recovery on his convalescent body. If he walked as far as his legs would bear him, he must compel them to return. There was no pleasure in budding woods, opening flowers or birdsong. He grieved for Kenric, but could thrust that to the back of his mind; he missed the Slut with every step he took.
He was hunched on a fallen tree beside the track, gazing without seeing at celandines golden about his feet, when a shadow moved upon them. He glanced up, his hand leaping to his dagger and then falling empty. Wulfric was standing with his thumbs hooked into his belt, grimly regarding him. ‘Proper bad luck you’re having, eh? How you faring?’
‘Well enough. You followed me?’
‘Keeping an eye on you.’ He sat on the other end of the log.
‘You—’ Guy checked himself. ‘I was glad enough of you last time we met,’ he conceded. ‘Any n
ews from Warby?’
‘Fair chucked a rock into the hornet’s nest, you done, setting Lady Mabel to run wi’ the brat. Lord Henry took ’em in, sweet enough to drip honey, and they’re on the way to Bristol already. Me lord o’ Hell’s near splitting wi’ rage and the garrison out hunting you.’
‘Does he know who helped me away?’
‘The routier? Faced him down in his own bailey, and claimed he’d paid his debt, and if me lord pressed it further they’d see whose guts got spilt first. Neither’s dead, so they never got past words, and five men’s five men when war’s to hand.’
‘War?’
‘Malmesbury Castle’s gone over to the Angevin instead o’ being pulled down like they agreed. And there’s a whisper Lord Robert o’ Leicester’s making peace wi’ the Duke.’
Guy stiffened. Lord Robert had always been Stephen’s most prominent and faithful supporter; his defection would be a portent to shake allegiances. ‘If that’s true,’ he pronounced, ‘he’s recognizing young Henry’s right to succeed Stephen. The King’s past fifty and spent with trouble. His army refused battle at Malmesbury. Wulfric, it’s more likely to mean peace than war.’
‘Lord Reynald’s counting on war. And he’s plotting some harm to Helvie’s father.’ He plainly reckoned that kinship gave him the right to use her name untitled, and the presumption jarred on Guy, who had barely achieved that right himself. ‘And if I knowed what, d’you reckon I’d conceal it?’ he protested to the implied question. ‘It’s witchcraft; the stink of it’s in my nose, and the old besom don’t croak joy but for evil in hand. And me lord’s offering twenty marks for word o’ where to find you.’
Guy pushed to his feet. ‘A temptation,’ he said.
Wulfric spat. ‘Judas silver. What’s your intent, once you’ve mended yourself?’
‘I’m for Bristol and Duke Henry, peace and strong law in England.’
‘Aye, no place for you here. I’ll keep my eyes open for you.’
‘What’s your interest in this coil?’ Guy asked him bluntly. ‘Elswyth. Never been no other woman for me, all my life.’
‘Elswyth? But—’
‘No way we could marry. We’re too close kin, our fathers brothers. So she took service in Trevaine and caught Lord Henry’s fancy. Helvie’s hers.’
Guy understood, so well that he could find no words. They walked back in silence to the path, where they parted.
‘If you needs me, send to the forge. I’ll be inside reach. God keep you,’ Wulfric said, and vanished into the budding undergrowth.
Guy repeated his news to the women over dinner. ‘So you’re laying your wager on Duke Henry?’ Elswyth asked thoughtfully.
‘I did that when I spoke with him in—in my father’s workshop. Sir Conan and I are pledged to ride to Bristol after Easter, when his service is up.’
Helvie’s face darkened. ‘That—’ She bit off expostulation, and after a moment asked as temperately as she could, ‘Must you, Guy? Must you?’
‘I've no choice. And I’m promised. He was my good friend, Helvie, when I needed one most.’
‘I can’t forget—’
‘He has changed. He is truly repentant, and in bitter grief.’ She bent her head. Elswyth, bustling about the hearth, said unexpectedly, ‘Will you deny there’s virtue in repentance?’
‘Oh—oh no. How dare I ?’ Visibly she struggled with her grudge, and then turned to Guy, leaning from her stool to take his hands. ‘He saved you. He brought you to me, and for that I must forgive him and be grateful.’
Guy slid from his own stool to kneel beside her. ‘My generous lass!’
‘I will try to—to conform to your desires in all things—’
‘Little as that has been your custom? I’ll not strain conformity too harshly, Helvie.’ He sobered, gazing into her anxious eyes. ‘We are truly pledged to each other, lady of my heart.’ He tugged at the thong round his neck, hauling it over his head. The medallion glinted on his palm. ‘Wear this as token, Helvie. I’ve nothing else for a betrothal gift.’
‘It’s your shield against witchcraft, isn’t it? Oh Guy—’
‘I had rather it shielded you. It was my mother’s gift.’ He dropped it over her head, drew her plaits through the loop and slid it into the valley between her breasts. She laid her hand over it, and then clutched at him.
‘Take me with you, Guy! Don’t leave me behind! We can be married by the first priest we meet. In Mary Mother’s name, don’t leave me!’
Guy’s heart jarred against his ribs. ‘Helvie, my heart, how can I?’
She stared at him, her face whitening. ‘Don’t—Guy, don’t you wish—?’
‘Haven’t I shown you there is nothing in this world I desire more?’ he said violently, and reached out to her. She came into his arms, clinging fiercely, pressing to him so that all his body thrilled to the contact. ‘Oh Helvie, my heart, my own love!’ Her head was on his shoulder, his cheek against her springing hair, his hand cupped a warm breast.
‘Why, why?’ she whispered.
‘Listen, Helvie. You don’t know what you ask. I will not marry you until I can give you the honour I owe you.’
‘But I don’t care for that, only for you! I can be poor as a peasant—I can cook and wash and sew for you—’
‘Helvie, I’m a knight who cannot furnish his helm. I have nothing but the clothes I wear and a poor nag.’
‘Do you think that matters to me?’
‘I shall have to serve Sir Conan as his squire, or even as a common soldier if he requires it, until I have equipped myself and won a place in the world fit for you. I cannot take a wife among routiers. Dear girl, you must not ask it. The only women in an army’s tail are whores, Helvie, any man’s women. Do you understand why it’s not possible?’
She moved against him, her hands sliding up to clasp his neck. ‘Yes. Yes. I’d only make it harder. You would have to defend me, fight for me.’
‘You will be in my heart and mind every day. For you I’ll accomplish it. We are pledged. If you can withstand your father and wait for me, Helvie, I swear to come for you as soon as God permits.’
‘Wait? For you I’d wait forever. I’ll be faithful, Guy.’
‘As soon as I have honourably won horse and mail, helm and sword—’ A shock like a blow halted him, and he tightened his hold on Helvie until she gasped. An abyss of horror opened under him.
‘What is it, Guy? Oh, what is it?’
‘I have a sword,’ he told her, his voice cracking. ‘It is hidden in Warby, waiting for me to return for it.’
Chapter 17
Holy Week was with them. Elswyth and Helvie had borne grey-tufted willow branches back from church on Palm Sunday. Guy had not accompanied them. Though everyone in the village must know his whereabouts, he reckoned it imprudent to flaunt his presence in their house. He was recovered enough to help the women about their tasks, despite their protests that a knight should not demean himself to hew wood and draw water, and to spend more and more time walking and riding in the woods, alone and lonely. No four feet padded beside him, no broad head thrust under his head for a caress, no warm body pressed close when he stopped to rest. The Slut’s death had torn a void in his life that nothing could fill, and he knew that as soon as the chance offered he would tether a mastiff bitch on heat in the woods for a wolf to cover, though he would never have another to equal her.
Henry de Trevaine had not approached the cottage, though he must know Guy was there with his daughter and her mother, and Guy wondered and worried about his reaction when he learned that Helvie was pledged to his enemy’s son. For himself he did not care, but Guy feared how his wrath might fall on Helvie, and lay awake at nights racking his wits for some means by which he might honourably wed her and take her with him.
Guy had no word from Conan either. He had not expected any; only a fool would entrust so treasonous a secret to an underling, or send a routier to a lonely cottage inhabited by two women and an unfit man. Yet in moments of depress
ion Guy would wonder whether Conan would abide by their compact, or whether his reformation would prove too hard to sustain. He grew more anxious as Easter approached.
Likely enough Lord Reynald would try to prevent his desertion, and Guy imagined Conan trying to fight his way out of Warby and cut down in the gateway, his one friend lost to him and with him his own future.
His strength was slower in returning than he had expected. He still tired easily, and had not regained much of his lost weight. Yet he was impatient to be gone, to redeem the shame of his knighting by honourable service, to seek a place in the world he could share with Helvie. To live in the same cottage with her was at once delight and torment. Daily the strain of unfulfilled desire grew harder to bear. Honour forbade that he should lie with her before marriage, and marriage was the most distant of prospects.
Elswyth watched shrewdly, saw to it that they were seldom alone together, and spoke once to the point. ‘You’ll do for Helvie, because you sets her afore yourself. I don’t hold wi’ snatching.’
‘I’ve learned it’s a mistake,’ he answered, thinking painfully of Agnes. Loving Helvie had taught him how deeply he had wronged the girl who had died for his errors.
The Monday closed in clear sunlight, and as day faded they sat round the fire, the women spinning. Guy, setting new teeth in a wooden rake, was idly reckoning how much more efficient an iron one would be if peasants could only afford smith’s work for their tools, when shod hooves came clopping along the path through the woods. Three heads jerked round. Guy lifted to his feet and moved to the door, poising the rake for an under-arm swing at a man’s face.
The hooves halted. Feet trod up the path. A hand first tapped and then pushed the unbarred door, which swung back. A tall shape stood darkly against the afterglow, and the firelight danced in red sparks on mail and helmet. ‘God save all within,’ Henry de Trevaine saluted them formally.
‘And all who enter. Come you in, my lord.’
Guy grounded the rake and waited with his hands on the shaft. Lord Henry, punctilious in the courtesies, removed his helmet and thrust back the padded coif beneath, unbuckled his swordbelt and set the weapon against the door-post. He nodded to Elswyth, kissed Helvie on the brow, and surveyed Guy over her head.
