by Betina Krahn
When Saxxe looked to Gasquar, that hard-drinking son of Gascony looked as if he’d been impaled.
“Water?” he gasped. “They drink water?”
It was a most peculiar place. With his thirst and incredulity growing, Saxxe visited the tannery, the pottery, the mill, and the carpenter shop, and the place grew more peculiar still.
Wherever he went, people paused to greet him shyly and answer his questions. But he began to notice that whenever he or Gasquar picked something up and set it down, the tradesmen or quickly straightened and readjusted it the moment they turned away. In fact, the whole population were constantly sweeping, dusting, and arranging and rearranging things. In his entire, eventful life, he had never seen anything like it. It was a veritable frenzy of tidiness; they couldn’t allow a bit of dirt, confusion, or disorder anywhere.
Second only to their compulsive orderliness was their penchant for counting. They numbered the beans in a bag, the pegs in the sole of a shoe, the hours of the day—rung out by bells—and the strokes required to mix dough in a baker’s trough. And they argued about their counting . . . how many more customers one merchant had than another on a given day; how many paces it took from one point in the town to another; how many sneezes constituted a true illness; how many individual raisins constituted a selling measure.
He stood in complete bewilderment as Mattias and Hubert argued whether he had seen five-eighths or four-sixths of the ninety-seven buildings in the city . . . and whether Saxxe had paid them seventeen compliments or twenty-two. He exchanged looks with Gasquar, then headed for the seat of their industry: the weavers’ street.
He spent a long while watching their busy looms and the exhaustive patience they took with marking their patterns and setting their looms. Then he moved on to their warehouse and examined the bolts of cloth stacked there from the winter’s weaving, awaiting the trading mission that would carry them to the Hot Fair at Troyes in midsummer. The fabric was extraordinary work; colors as deep and vivid as any he had seen in the east, and patterns and finishes to rival anything in Venice. Their finest goods were a blend of silk and wool, which they wove with great ingenuity into a single cloth that felt as soft as the exotic velvets of the Persians.
They paused in the doorway of the spinning house and he was astounded by a drone of counting—scores of voices—as the raw wool yarns were being wound onto skeins on pairs of hands. Each loop of yarn was tallied the instant it was created; numbers were flying hot and thick!
“What are they doing?” Saxxe demanded, stumbling back into the street.
“They are counting the windings, to make the skeins even,” Hubert said proudly. “After they are dyed, they will all be of the same length . . . the perfect size for our looms.”
“Why don’t they just wind it on one large spool and cut the yarn to length later?”
Hubert blinked, seeming unnerved by the suggestion. “But that would not be . . . as orderly. And if weaving is anything, sir, it is an orderly undertaking.”
Saxxe stared at him. Orderly. What sort of people maintained orderliness above practicality? And what sort of people welcomed strangers so warmly and eagerly? As he and Gasquar strode through the city, there was not a door or a face closed to them.
He began to see why Thera had behaved with such fierce protectiveness toward her people. They were a gentle, courteous, impressionable folk who had an endearing but worrisome innocence about them. They had developed their weaving to a high art, but it seemed to be the only trade that truly flourished among them. Their metal craft and masonry had fallen into disuse, their stables needed work, and they had no forge capable of the ironwork necessary for weapons or large tools like iron plowshares. Most important, they had no defenses; no walls, fortified towers, or ramparts . . . no garrison, no guard, and, from what he had seen, not even a warrior class. Mercia, like its sensual little princess, was a juicy plum . . . just ripe for the picking.
He began to see why Cedric said they needed a king. There were a number of things that required a man’s doing in Thera’s unusual little kingdom.
“Bells or no bells,” he declared with a gleam in his eye, “I need some ale!”
He and Gasquar strode through the streets to the main marketplace and pounded on the doors of the first tavern they came to until they were opened. With a combination of wicked flattery and good-natured guile, Saxxe talked the wide-eyed proprietor into serving him and Gasquar . . . and everyone else in the throng who felt a bit dry.
Only one or two Mercians dared wet their throats with tavern ale at such an hour, but the tables and benches were soon packed with people eager to experience Mercia’s visitors. As the drink began to flow, so did Saxxe’s talk of his travels and Gasquar’s outrageous tales. Before long, half of the busy square had collected at the tavern and the crowd came alive with excitement.
In the midst of a story, Saxxe gestured broadly with his tankard, sloshing ale on a nearby table, and a tavern maid rushed to wipe it up with a cloth. The movement brought a scowl to his face and his apparent displeasure settled a hush over the crowd. The little maid froze.
The Mercians’ unholy penchant for cleanliness, Saxxe realized, afforded him a shameless opportunity. His expression softened and the twinkle came back to his eyes, melting the tavern girl’s fear.
“You are without a doubt the cleanest, most orderly folk I have ever seen,” he said, looking around him. “Are they not the most fastidious of peoples, Gasquar?”
“Alors—the streets of Heaven itself could not be any cleaner than these!” Gasquar agreed, wiping the ale from his beard with a brawny fist.
There were grins of relief and proud nods all around. Then Saxxe spotted Lillith at the edge of the crowd again, watching him suspiciously, and he smiled. All morning and into the afternoon, wherever he had gone, Lillith had appeared . . . scrutinizing his interactions with Thera’s people. It wasn’t hard to guess why she was there or who had sent her. Counting that his words would reach Thera’s ears, he winked at the women standing nearby, setting them blushing and smiling.
“Your city is so fair and pleasant, and your people so diligent and exemplary . . . I swear you have converted me!” He jerked an emphatic nod. “Indeed. To cleanliness.”
Widened eyes, stifled gasps, and delighted laughter greeted his pronouncement. He raised his hand with a wickedly solemn face. “I have decided to mend my slovenly and unkempt ways, for good . But I fear there is one difficulty . . . one that it shames me to relate.”
All glanced at one another and held their breath, edging closer to hear.
“It has been so long since I bathed . . . I believe I have forgotten how.” He aimed a look that blended roguish seduction and boyish petulance at the women in the crowd. “I believe what I need is someone to show me what to do and to help me do it properly.” He turned to a plump, bright-eyed matron on his right.
“Now, who do you suppose I could get to help me?”
And she giggled.
* * *
That evening, after a long afternoon of listening to the reports of her clerks and councilors, Thera sent a page to invite several of her ladies to dine with her in her private chambers. He came back alone and seriously out of breath. But before Thera could hear his news, Lillith appeared in the doorway, holding her sides as if she had just run a distance.
“Princess! Saxxe Rouen . . . the women . . .” She staggered against a pillar to try to recover her voice. But the few words she had managed to get out were enough to rouse Thera’s anxiety.
“Saxxe?” she demanded, grabbing Lillith’s sleeves. “What has he done now?”
“In his quarters,” Lillith said, swallowing hard and straightening. “They’re in his quarters . . . or on their way . . .”
“Who?” Thera demanded.
“The women . . .”
“What women?”
“All of them.” Lillith braced. “Nearly every woman in the kingdom!”
Thera rushed for the door with Lillith rig
ht behind her. She raced through the arched colonnade leading from her quarters into the public chambers and then jerked to a halt. The great domed hall was filled with women streaming toward the east wing of the palace. Young and old, highborn and lowly, elegantly dressed and modestly garbed . . . there were dozens upon dozens of women . . . all bright-eyed and red-cheeked, talking excitedly.
“They’re going to Saxxe Rouen’s chambers,” Lillith explained, looking a little sick. “He invited them.”
“He what?” Thera stared at the parade of women with flame in her eyes. Charging out into their midst, she confronted a pair of shopkeepers’ wives. “And just what do you think you are doing . . . going to Saxxe Rouen’s chambers?”
“He’s bathing, Princess . . . and he’s asked us to come teach him how,” one of the women said with a blush. With a perfunctory curtsy, the pair hurried past Thera.
“Bathing?” For a moment she stood flat-footed in shock, scarcely able to believe her ears. Then she turned back to Lillith with her eyes widening and mouth tightening. “He’s taking a wretched bath?” She waved an arm toward the crowd of women. “And they’re going to teach him how? Like bloody hell they will!”
She snatched up her skirts and strode furiously down the long corridor toward Saxxe’s chamber. Pushing her way through the throng outside, she finally made it to the door and thrust inside . . . to find the room equally crowded . . . and awash in “oohs,” “ahhs,” and sultry feminine laughter.
At the center of that heated throng lay the sunken bathing pool . . . and in the pool stood Saxxe Rouen, waist-deep in water, being scrubbed and attended by half a dozen young women wearing only clinging wet chemises and sloe-eyed smiles.
Thera reached the edge of the crowd and stood rooted to the spot, speechless, as she watched their avid hands gliding over his wide chest and up his thick, corded arms and down his tapered sides . . . toward the parts of him that lay below the water line. The women watching laughed and called advice as the nubile young things acting as his body servants demonstrated the use of a cake of Castilian soap, wielded a pair of shears to trim his shaggy locks to a neat shoulder length, and plied a well-honed blade across his face.
She watched in horrified fascination as they scraped the last of the thick, dark beard from his throat, then splashed water on him to rinse the soap away. Their busy fingers lingered over his square jaw and corded neck, then floated curiously down the trail of dark hair in the center of his chest and stomach, before veering coyly aside.
The back of Thera’s throat burned. Her fists clenched. Her stomach felt strangely hot and hollow.
When he ducked under the water to rinse, then rose in a showering spray, she was swamped by a deluge of memories and longings that made it difficult to breathe. She recalled another sort of bathing . . . in a stream at twilight, when they had rinsed mud from each other. She had caressed him with that same wonder, that same sensual hunger....
“By the Sacred Scrolls—there’s a fine face under that bush of hair!” came an age-thinned voice from across the chamber. When Thera craned her neck to see, there was old Elder Agnes, grinning enthusiastically at Saxxe. Thera’s jaw dropped. Elder Agnes too? “A mirror—we must have a mirror,” the old lady decreed.
They passed a polished metal hand mirror through the spectators and handed it to him. “Dieu! It’s been so long since I saw my own chin, I scarcely know myself.” His deep, sensual laughter rolled out over the crowd, and the sound of his pleasure stripped every nerve in Thera’s body raw, exposing her desires and uncovering an unexpected greed in her.
“What in heaven do you think you are doing?” She erupted from the crowd to take a stand near the edge of the pool, her chin at a combative angle. Saxxe jerked his head up, then handed the mirror to one of his comely body servants, and greeted Thera with an infuriating smile.
“Princess Thera! How good of you to come! You must be pleased to know that I have decided at long last to follow your advice . . . to bathe. And your ladies have been so good as to—”
“I know what they are doing, Rouen—I have eyes!” Ogling him! she almost blurted out. And how dare they gawk and gape at him when he was—he was—She finally said it to herself: he was hers! She wheeled on the women behind her with her eyes blazing. “This is an outrage . . . indecent in the extreme!”
“What? Giving a weary visitor comfort and assistance, out of the goodness of their hearts, is indecent?” he declared, pulling her attention back to him. “In every noble house in France, the women attend their guests’ bathing . . . in all goodness and charity.” His smile grew as he glanced around at the women’s glowing faces, then wrapped brawny arms around two of his attendants and gave them each a blatant caress. “And believe me, your women are the very essence of”—his eyes twinkled—“goodness and charity.”
The titters that wafted through the chamber raked Thera’s newly exposed nerves like cats’ claws. How dare he smile at them like that—stroke and fondle them right before her eyes!
“Out!” She turned on the lot of them. “Out, I say! This moment! You too, Agnes!” She blazed at the withered little woman in imperial blue, then turned to the others. “Go home—all of you—to your husbands and fathers and uncles. Go bathe your own men. Out!”
She drove them from the room in a royal fury . . . pushing some by the elbows, dragging others by the arms, staring down one or two stubborn ones . . . sending them all scurrying for the door. With longing and apologetic looks at Saxxe, and startled “ohhhs” and “oh my’s,” they retreated . . . creating confusion in the corridor as they pushed their way out of the chamber. She then stalked back to the bathing pool and glared at the young girls clinging to Saxxe’s obviously naked form.
“You too, Alaine . . . Birget . . . Claudine. Out! Now!”
The fire in her eyes set them scrambling for the edge of the pool, and in short order they were wrapped in linen and hurrying for the door. She herded the rest of the women out after them, then slammed the door behind the lot and threw the bar in place. For a long moment she stood glaring at the heavy wooden panels, listening to the turmoil outside and trying to master the turmoil inside herself. Then she turned back to the bathing pool, intending to give him the tongue-lashing of his life.
Halfway there, she stopped. He was still standing waist-deep in the water, watching her with an irresistible, tawny-eyed smile that made her feel as if he could see straight into her heart . . . and knew that her outrage was not caused by concern for her women’s sensibilities or by propriety. But that roguish grin was almost all she recognized. The rest of his face, shorn of its dark beard, and his neatly trimmed hair seemed completely strange to her. And devastatingly handsome. She couldn’t take her eyes from him.
His cheekbones were high and wide, his jaw was strong, and his chin was square with a slight dent in the middle. In the midst of that astonishing new countenance was a familiar mouth . . . with wide, grandly curved lips that had sometimes felt like warm satin and other times like burning brands against her skin. A shiver went down her spine and she moved closer, drawn to that fascinating new aspect of a face that she had known so intimately.
“After all your complaints, I would have thought you would be pleased to have me bathe . . . perhaps even put on a tunic,” he said, watching the play of emotions across her face. “Since you’ve sent all my helpers away”—he picked up a sponge floating nearby and held it out to her—“I think it’s only fair that you take their place.” His voice lowered to a finger-tingling pulse. “My back still needs scrubbing, and they hadn’t quite gotten to my legs and my . . . feet.”
Creeping closer, she stared at him, torn between her rightful ire and her rising need. Her heart was drumming against her ribs, and her whole body was going warm and weak with excitement. Her lips felt thick as she stared at his, and suddenly all she could see was his handsome face, his eyes . . . glowing with desire . . . reaching for her.
She put her hand out to take the sponge, and he snagged her by the wris
t and pulled her straight into the water with him.
“Ohhh! Ughh—y-you!” she sputtered, wiping her wet face as he dragged her against him. Gasping, she tried to shove away, but he slid his arms around her and reeled her close, laughing.
“Now we’re even,” he said, staring down into her eyes with wicked satisfaction.
Then she knew: he had planned this all along. She stilled against him. The women, the bathing, the shaving . . . he had been just waiting to pull her into the water.
When his mouth lowered to hers, she realized she had been waiting for it, too.
At that first contact, her arms slipped around his waist and her hands slid up his back as she opened hungrily to his kiss. Her body molded to his, seeking his heat in the cooling water, seeking the sensual power that trembled the very foundations of her being. She drank him in with every breath and absorbed him through her skin . . . hungry for the feel and the taste of him.
His mouth was wine sweet as he toyed with her lips, taking the kiss steadily deeper. He was caressing her, teasing her until she moaned softly and writhed against him, entreating his touch. Just when she felt she couldn’t bear the need another moment, he began to run his hands over her back and waist, tracing her shape, working a potent magic through the wet silk of her gown.
Desire rose like a sultry mist inside her, conjured by his heat, then condensed by his touch into a river of need that flowed through her limbs and pooled hotly in her loins. She rippled under his hands, unable to get close enough to him to soothe the ache in her breasts and the burning between her legs.
“Stay with me, Thera,” he murmured, cradling her head between his hands. His whispers filled her mouth, then flowed down her throat . . . straight into her heart. “Give me this night. And let me give you all the pleasure you can hold.”
Pleasure. She managed to right her gaze enough to look into his darkened, luminous eyes. His heat and presence engulfed her; his desire permeated the air, the water, the entire world around her. She somehow understood. He was a force of nature . . . ordained for her . . . inevitable . . . inescapable.
