“You’re not really going to spank me?” she said.
“Oh, but I am,” he replied, backing over to the bed where, as he sat down, he pulled her into his lap and over his knees.
Mairin was unbelieving. Then she felt him yank her skirts up to bare her bottom. She cried out in a shocked tone, “Josselin!” as she felt a hard arm clamp across her back to prevent her struggles.
For a moment he viewed with satisfaction the tight little hillocks of her pure smooth flesh. Then his hand descended with a satisfying smack which left the clear pink imprint of his hand upon her heretofore unblemished skin. Mairin shrieked more with surprise than any hurt for the blow had been only noisy, and not severe. “I will have your respect, woman,” he said, his voice a parody of an outraged and offended husband. Then he laid two more spanks upon her squirming bottom, and turning her over demanded, “Are you chastened now, lady?”
“Oh, oh!” she cried, squeezing out two false tears from beneath tightly closed eyes. “Thou art a brute, my lord, to abuse me so!”
“What now? You would criticize your lord’s behavior? I think I must chastise you further, lady.” He stood, lifting her up into his arms as he did, and dumped her unceremoniously upon their bed. Then before she might escape him he flung himself upon her, pushing her long skirts before him, and burying his dark blond head between her thighs. That he immediately found the mark was instantly evident.
“Ohhhhh!” she squealed. “Ohhhhh, Josselin! Oh, how you punish me!”
His skilled tongue moved over her quivering pink flesh with unerring accuracy, and though he held her down tightly, his hands clasping her hips, she squirmed most deliciously beneath his marauding tongue. “Sweet,” he murmured against her body. “You are so sweet, my enchantress!”
“Ahhhhh, Josselin, my lord,” she whispered breathily, “I am well punished by you this day, but you will have to continue to discipline me in future quite regularly lest I forget my place again.”
“Shall I correct your wayward behavior like this?” he asked her, worrying the bud of her womanhood with a flickering tongue.
“Ahhhhh, ’tis cruel torture, my lord,” she cried, “but do not stop I beg of you for I would be all that you want me to be! Ahhhhh! Ohhhhh! Ohh!” And suddenly fulfilled, Mairin’s body relaxed as a wave of warm, honeyed pleasure swept over her.
With a growl of lust that came from deep within his throat, Josselin pulled himself up, and mounting her, plunged his aching manhood into her welcoming passage. Like one possessed, he drove himself into her over and over again . . . withdrawing and thrusting . . . withdrawing and thrusting until she raked his back bloody with her nails and they bruised each other’s mouths with hungry kisses. At last when neither of them could any longer sustain the pleasure, their juices poured forth and mingled wildly, leaving them weak with the force of their passion.
And after a long while it was Mairin who, recovering her senses, said in a shocked tone, “It is not two hours past the noon hour yet!”
Josselin laughed weakly. “Lady,” he said, “what has the hour to do with it?”
“Should we be making love now? In the daytime? It seems somehow indecent.”
“I know of no rule of either God or man that forbids a husband and wife from enjoying each other whenever it suits them.” He rolled off her, but quickly took her hand in his, and kissing it, held it.
“Do you remember your parents making love in the daytime?” she asked him.
“Before they were married, aye, but once they had wed, she became very proper. Not so proper that she didn’t have another baby. It seems so strange. My sister, Linette, is legitimate, and I am not. I hardly know her, for mother was not anxious that her precious daughter be exposed to her bastard.” There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.
Mairin squeezed his hand. “We will love all our children, Josselin. I never knew my half-sister, but Brand was all the world to me. I loved him dearly. I would have our children love each other too in that way.”
She was magnificent, this beautiful girl he had married! He had never known such kindness of heart in any woman, and he marveled at her sweetness. What had he done to merit such good fortune? he wondered. He wanted to shout aloud with his joy.
“I must write to my father,” he said, “and tell him of our marriage. It is past time I did so, but I have not a fine hand. Can Father Albert do it for me?”
“I will do it for you,” she answered him, standing up and smoothing her skirts down demurely. “If, my lord, you can compose yourself, and come back to the hall with me.”
“Very well, lady, I will come with you, but from now on I shall keep a strict accounting of your behavior, and each night we will settle matters between us.”
“And your behavior, my lord?” she asked, her mouth curving into a mischievous smile. “Shall I also keep a strict accounting?”
He nodded. “I am a fair man. You will have your chance to plead your case.” He stood up, and settled his own clothing so that it had a semblance of neatness. Then reaching out he swiftly swept her into his arms. “You’re a saucy wench, Mairin, my wife.”
“A saucy wench for a bold knave, my lord,” she answered him pertly, and pulling his head down kissed him hard.
“Not so quickly,” he laughed as she moved to pull away from him. Then he kissed her slowly, and sweetly, his mouth moving sensuously on hers, his tongue running softly along her lips.
Why, she thought, why is it that when he kisses me I feel as if my veins are filled with honeyed wine? She managed to pull her head away from him. “Don’t,” she begged weakly.
“Why not?” he demanded. “I like kissing you.”
“I like it too,” she admitted, “but it makes me want you very much.”
He chuckled. “I find that extremely acceptable behavior in my wife.” He held her tightly against him, his hands rubbing up and down her back in a suggestive manner.
“We shall never get anything else done if all we do is . . . is . . .”
“Fuck,” he supplied cheerfully, and then he laughed. “The word may be Anglo-Saxon, Mairin, but I know it. It means to plant, and that is just what I want to do with you. Plant my seed in you deep and sure, and see you ripen with child.” The hooded eyes blazed down at her with passionate intensity. “I don’t think I shall ever get enough of you, enchantress mine.”
“Nor I of you, my lord!” she whispered. “Do you know how very much I crave you? I wonder if I should not be ashamed of such a fierce desire.” Reaching up she touched his cheek softly, and Josselin shuddered with his feelings.
Then he loosed her, and shaking himself said, “You are right, Mairin. We shall never get anything done if we do not leave this room.” Without another word he took her by the hand and they descended back down into the hall where Eada sat still placidly sewing, and Dagda yet honed on several knife blades.
Mairin picked up the tunic she had been working on, and began once again to add embroidery to the neckline. Josselin returned to the high board where he studied the manor books. Every once in a while, however, their eyes would meet, for neither could help but look at the other. Their ardor excited and thrilled them and they felt they could not get enough of one another.
When the evening meal was served, they ate automatically, tasting little, anxious for the time when they might once more leave the hall and escape to the private world of their bedchamber. The letter to Raoul de Rohan was momentarily forgotten. Eada and Dagda cast amused looks at each other. Finally when Mairin and Josselin, with much yawning and complaint of fatigue, had left the hall, Eada said, “I think, Dagda, that we may look for an heir to Aelfleah by Michaelmas. I confess that I long to hold my grandchild in my arms!”
The Irishman rumbled with humor, but there was a touch of nostalgia in his voice. “She is like Maire Tir Connell if she but knew it. My princess was as hungry with her passion for Ciaran St. Ronan as Mairin is for her husband.”
“Pray that that passion does not result in the same
end,” fretted Eada.
“No,” said Dagda. “My princess was always delicate in her health. Mairin has always been strong, and she is broader across her hips than the princess was. Mairin has her natural mother’s face, my lady Eada, but she is more like her father in build. There’s a look to her. She was meant to breed up babies, and she wants to have them. My princess was joyful to be bearing Baron St. Ronan’s child, but she was also secretly fearful. Such fears can take a toll on a woman. Mairin is not that way. Maire Tir Connell was a fairychild, delicate and elusive. Her daughter is made of sterner stuff. Have no fears for her safety, my lady Eada. She will not only survive whatever life offers her, she will thrive.”
Chapter 11
The winter had seemed long, but now suddenly the winds were blowing from the south. The snows upon the ground began to turn to mush, the drifts pitting first, then melting down into nothing more than icy puddles of dirty water. The earth began to thaw and warm. Everywhere there was mud. Soft and oozing in the sunshine, freezing again in the dark of night. The tips of the tree branches, tight dark nubbins throughout the winter, now began to grow lighter and burgeon with newly revived life. In a meadow by the river the lambs, born so improvidently during the harshest part of winter, gamboled within sight of their mothers, scampering and bouncing with each other amid the faint new green of the longer days.
Early each morning as the sun began to rise, and again each afternoon when the chill of evening began to creep into the air, Master Gilleet would climb up the western hills to the castle site. He would push his staff into the ground to check the gradual retreat of the frost from the bosom of Mother Earth. Already in these final days of the late winter the serfs belonging to Aelfleah had begun to build the barracks that would house those coming to erect the castle. It was still too early to till the fields and plant.
One week Dagda and Master Gilleet went off to Hereford, to Worcester, and finally to Gloucester seeking laborers, diggers, and carpenters. They returned successful each time. Aelfleah’s population doubled, and then tripled as the barracks filled with workers. The stonemasons had already arrived from Normandy. A blacksmith’s forge was constructed on the site for Osweald, the manor smith, so that he would not have to travel back and forth with his work between his own smithy and the castle site.
Egbert the bailiff sought among the cottages for new kitchen helpers. He took younger girls than he normally might have for simpler tasks, and promoted other servants earlier than he usually did. They would need everyone they could get. The responsibility of feeding the vast army of workers needed to build the castle was a great one.
Weorth, the miller, added two young boys to his staff, and ground extra grain daily into flour. He couldn’t remember ever having worked so hard. Aelfleah had always been a quiet, peaceful place. His responsibilities, inherited from his father who had once been Aelfleah’s miller, had always been minimal. Now he worked from dawn to dusk falling into his bed so exhausted that his young second wife complained bitterly that he was neglecting her.
Byrd, the manor baker, a little wiry man whose mother had been a wild Welsh hill girl, ruled the ovens with a twinkling eye and a merry jest for everyone. The extra work was no burden for him for he loved being busy. Covered in flour up to his elbows he worked kneading the dough into loaves, whisking them to the ovens to bake and out again when they were done. Then his helpers would trek the bread up the hill to the building site where the camp cooks were busy over their fires, and glad to see Byrd the baker’s loaves which were tasty and filling.
Then almost overnight the winter was gone, and the land began to quickly green. Master Gilleet and his staff began to design the castle while the moat was being dug. It was not to be a large castle for Josselin de Combourg was not a great lord. Its main purpose was one of defensive vigilance although there would be comfortable living quarters designed within the castle for the lord and his family. Although Mairin resisted the idea of eventually leaving the manor house the thought of living again within a castle was intriguing. It seemed a long time since Landerneau.
The king returned to Normandy in March taking with him those whose presence might encourage rebellion. Namely young Edgar the Atheling, Waltheof, the Earl of Northampton and Huntingdon, and the brothers Earls Edwin and Morkar. He left behind him as co-regents his brother, Bishop Odo, and his seneschal, William FitzOsbern, whom he newly created Earl of Hereford. The bishop would rule southeast England as far west as Winchester. FitzOsbern would oversee the Midlands from the marches of Wales to Norwich. Northumbria was to be overseen by a thegn named Copsi who had been a relative of the Godwin family. The southwest of England had not yet submitted to William, and was still loyal to the dead Harold Godwinson whose mother and sister were residing in Exeter.
As the days grew longer and warmer, Aelfleah’s peasants were able to work the fields which were planted in barley, oats, wheat, and rye. The orchard flowered profusely in a copious haze of pinkish-white blossoms. Within The Forest the streams ran swiftly, and completely free of ice. Taking her basket into the woods Mairin found marvelous large mushrooms which she brought home, instructing the cook to cook them with oil, pepper, and some of their precious salt. This way the mushrooms could not give rise to the illnesses that encouraged black bile.
Then it was summer. The grain stood tall and began to ripen. A messenger from the north sheltered with them one evening and told them that Copsi had been murdered by Oswulf, the son of the ex-earl of Bernicia, in a feud that dated back between Godwin’s family and the old Northumbrian ruling house. Then came a summons to Josselin to come with his men and aid the king’s brother. Eustace of Boulogne, a Picard, had seized Dover Castle, and was holding it against Bishop Odo.
Mairin burst into tears. “No!” she said. “You cannot leave me now. I am with child!”
Josselin’s face almost split itself with a grin. Lifting her up he swung her about with a joyous whoop. “That’s wonderful, enchantress! When? Are you certain? Why didn’t you tell me before?” He set her down, kissing her nose as he did so.
“I am only just sure,” she sniffed. “You won’t go, will you?”
“Of course I must go. Bishop Odo is the king’s brother, and I am the king’s man as well as his friend, Mairin. Certainly I will go, but it is unlikely that I will be gone for long. You have your mother, and you are safe here at Aelfleah. When is my son to be born?”
“Your son? It could very well be a daughter, my lord! Our child will be born in February.” She gave a small chuckle. “I should give birth at the same time the ewes are lambing.” She snuggled against his chest, rubbing her cheek against the fabric of his tunic.
He enclosed her within the circle of his embrace, and his lips brushed against a soft tendril of her hair that had escaped her coif. “If it is a son we shall work to make a daughter. If you give me a daughter, then we will endeavor to make a son the next time.”
She thought about his words in the weeks that followed, and she found them comforting. She wanted a large family, and she knew that he did also. They had talked about it often in the dark of many nights while snuggling together within their curtained bed. The part of her that was coolly logical knew that if they were to prosper in this new England then Josselin must be not only loyal, but he must be outstandingly so. It was within the king’s power to create a peerage, and if Josselin could earn such an honor by his usefulness and his loyalty, then there would be more for their children.
There would be the castle for their eldest son, and father’s title. Aelfleah would go to their second son. The third son could have Landerneau if she could get it back. She had never considered reclaiming her inheritance in Brittany, but the child growing within her had suddenly made her mindful of the importance of a man having possessions. She remembered the king’s surprise when she had said she didn’t want Landerneau. She knew he thought her foolish. The child now growing beneath her heart made her think differently.
Her father’s estate was rightfully hers, and
Blanche’s daughter had not the legal right to it. It was true her half-sister was as much a victim as she herself was. Of late she had for the first time in her life seriously considered what her half-sister might be like. Putting her mind to it she had seen a sweet-faced child with their father’s russet hair. Each time she concentrated upon it she saw the child kneeling in prayer, and once the little girl appeared to her in the garb of a religious. It came to Mairin that the unknown child who was her half-sister wanted to be a nun.
Concerned that she might be overruling her instinct with her personal desires, she asked Dagda to cast the rune stones for her. Each time the answer was the same. The fate of Mairin’s half-sister was with the church, not in marriage. Her conscience clear, she resolved to regain her lands in Brittany. She would see her half-sister had a decent dowry so she might enter the convent of her choice, but Landerneau belonged to her! It was her inheritance for her children!
Having settled in her mind the three estates upon her three nonexistent sons, Mairin decided her fourth son would be for the church, as well as one daughter. The other girls would be married off most advantageously due to their father’s position, wealth, power, and his place in the king’s favor. It was a wonderful daydream with which she entertained herself during the long and lonely nights Josselin was away aiding the king’s brother in his efforts to retake Dover Castle from the troublesome Eustace.
The long summer days slipped by pleasantly. At the castle site the surveyors under the guidance of Master Gilleet had marked off the locations of the castle walls and its towers. The digging of the foundation was well under way. The quarrymen had opened up an excellent location where they might quarry stone for the project. The stonecutters were already shaping the large blocks of dark gray rock that were to be used.
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