Sacred and Profane

by Nina Merrill

  Heart pounding, she hastened to the landing, where she could watch Tibald coming up the stairs in the dimness and judge his mood for herself. Would he be cold, distant? Would he speak to her at all? Chide her or apologize? Neither?

  The torchlight preceded him, flickering redly on the stone. He climbed the stairs slowly, and the moment she was in sight, he paused, one foot up, one down.

  I can’t read your face in this poor light. She bit her lip, near tears.

  The last few steps took a millennium. He looked at her, and something in her heart clenched fierce and hot, a cloud struck by lightning, yet releasing no rain. Her own breathing sounded loud in her ears. The look on his face took away her voice.

  Without a word, he held out his hand, and without a word, Jennie took it. He led her down the winding stairs and left the torch in the sconce at the bottom before opening the door.

  Chapter 18

  Outside the night was as black as she had come to expect. Tibald walked confidently across the grass, leading her between the chapel and the hospital building where Boudin still lay recovering. They headed northwest toward a long, low building across the grazing grounds. Jennie thought Tibald might prefer to walk alone and relaxed her grip on his hand, only to feel his fingers closing more tightly upon hers.

  As they neared the building, Jennie caught the warm, salty odor of horses and grain. A breeze lifted and died. Tibald opened a door at the end of the stable building and led her into its fusty blackness. It smelled of straw and manure and animals, reminding her of nothing so much as a childhood trip to the circus. He released her and closed the door behind them. Jennie stood motionless, hearing him fussing with something, and horses shifting and breathing in their stalls. After a short time, he made a quiet sound of satisfaction and the dim, erratic flicker of a rushlight lit the gloom.

  “This way.” He held the shallow bowl in front of him and walked down the center aisle of the stable. On either side of them horses blinked in the light, whickering softly. Near the end of the aisle, Tibald halted and put the rushlight into Jennie’s palms. He moved into the darkness and returned with a ladder, which he propped against a rafter above them. “Wait here, Jeanne. I will be but a moment.”

  He ascended with the light and Jennie heard rustling and scuffling. When he appeared at the top of the ladder, the rush light lit his face from below. It gave him a demonic cast, except Jennie recognized the slightly shy smile he wore. “Can you climb up, or should I come to fetch you?”

  Jennie gave a small snort, as quietly as she could manage. She knew there was no one here in the stable to hear them, but still she was sure she should be circumspect. She hadn’t the least doubt that Napier would strongly disapprove of their behavior. Tibald’s smile made her stomach tremble in fevered excitement, no matter how much she tried not to get her hopes up.

  “I can manage.” She climbed one-handed, the other gathering her skirt out of her way. As she neared the top of the ladder, Tibald caught her around the waist to steady her step to the loft.

  The rushlight rested on a small barrel to her left. In front of her was a tall heap of hay, partially covered by Tibald’s mantle. His sword belt lay near the barrel, carefully placed. His tabard was folded, the red cross uppermost. He stood dressed in a light woolen tunic and his breeches and boots.

  Tibald pulled up the ladder after her and set it aside. Jennie looked at him, bemused by the finality of this action. Tibald had assured that no one could enter the loft without their knowledge.

  “You’ve planned this,” she said quietly.

  Tibald nodded and held out his hands. She didn’t take them, looking instead at the makeshift bed in the hay as he spoke. “This is all we may ever have, for tomorrow night we leave this place, you and I. We know not who’ll be watching. Payraud says he cannot hold Maillet for much longer. Maillet claims he must meet a courier outside the preceptory, and Payraud fears the alarm will be raised if the meeting doesn’t happen. There’s little time for preparation, and still less time for—for—” Tibald faltered into silence, his hands still outstretched.

  Her lips parted and she stared at him. Her heart raced with a mixture of fear and thrill. “Leave? Tomorrow? Where will we go?”

  He shook his head. “I will not tell you—it’s better so, for you cannot tell what you do not know. We think Maillet is the king’s only agent, but there’s no way to be certain.”

  “And I’m to go with you? I don’t understand.”

  He looked aside. “Payraud has seen into my heart, further than I myself dared to look. He has not told me everything, though I am his warden, but I believe your words only confirmed that which he already knew. These past months, he has taken fewer and fewer apprentices into the order, and counseled those of us with sufficient reason to leave it ourselves.”

  Jennie’s stomach clenched. “And have you sufficient reason?”

  “I have,” he whispered, and this time, when his hands urged her, she reached out to lay her hands in his. “I have been thinking about your words the last time we were alone together—truly alone.” He didn't try to hide his chagrin, meeting her gaze with the fearless honesty she prized in him. “And I would be the man who strives to bring you pleasure, Jeanne.”

  Jennie wouldn’t have thought such words could strike her down, but her legs suddenly couldn’t support her. She went to her knees in the hay, still holding Tibald’s hands. Part of her brain was whirling—they’d be leaving Paris, and if her history was correct, they would likely be headed to the coast, to La Rochelle, where the Templar fleet was said to have escaped before the king’s decree was enforced. Perhaps she would even get a glimpse of the famous Templar treasure. But the greater part of her brain was bound up in trembling fantasies of making love with Tibald.

  “Is this agreeable to you? Will you teach me what is to be done?”

  Jennie sought for humor to lighten the depth of emotion she felt. “You told me you were experienced.”

  Tibald looked down at her, his mouth crooking in a slow smile. “As I said, she was a milkmaid.”

  “And you said she was Napier’s sister.” She smiled back. Equanimity was restoring itself.

  “That was a taunt for Alain…she was from a farm near my family’s. And we lay together only twice.” He tugged at her hands and helped her to her feet. “I have an idea that love should be slow. Yes?”

  “Well…yes, sometimes.”

  “As now?” His fingers shifted and plucked at the neckline of her dress.

  “Yes.”

  “I would like to begin by looking at you, if I may.”

  “That seems…reasonable.” She fought the urge to cross her arms over her body.

  Tibald’s gaze was darkly sensual, yet boyishly eager, despite the beard that concealed so much of his cheeks and jaw. He stepped slowly around her. The wide boards of the loft creaked a little under his weight, and in the darkness beyond the glow of the rushlight, horses shifted sleepily. When he completed the circuit, he stopped in front of her again.

  “Perhaps what is next is to undress you. Or—should I kiss you?”

  “Either…either would be agreeable. Tibald, this isn’t a ritual. You needn’t worry so much about following it exactly—”

  “Oh, but it is, Jeanne. It’s only by practice that we become proficient. I think your dress would be happier if it joined my tabard and my sword.” He stooped to reach for the hem.

  Slow was the operative word of the evening. Tibald lifted the dress from the bottom, gathering the fabric slowly into his big hands, watching each inch of her body as it was revealed to his eyes. Her feet, still in the soft boots. Bare calves. Bare knees, which he brushed with a feather touch, checking her face for her reaction. The hem of her cotton nightie. Its low-necked bodice with the edging of lace that was, even in its simplicity, more intricate than any decoration he had ever seen. The angles of her clavicles and the tender hollows they formed. When the dress was gone, he bent and breathed her scent there, making her shiver. />
  It wasn’t what she would have chosen for a seduction—the cliché of a hay loft, surrounded by the smells and sounds of a stable, herself unbathed, except for what small ablution she could manage each morning with her basin and the rough cloths. The down on her legs and under her arms had returned. Tibald, though relatively clean of person for a medieval man because the Templars had brought such customs back from the East where they’d dwelled so long, still smelled strongly of sweaty male and the oils he used on his sword and leathers.

  Yet when he sought her eyes for permission to remove her cotton gown, every bone in her body warmed and melted. Nothing existed outside the lamp’s dim glow. He lifted the fabric over her head and brought it to his nose, burying his face in the softness. Her scent seemed to intoxicate him. He peered at her over the bunching of cloth in his hands, and in an instant it was forgotten. She stood in her panties and boots, gooseflesh risen in her excitement and the slight chill of the autumn night. Her nightie fell to the floor and his hands came forward to cup her breasts.

  “These are wondrous soft and heavier than they seem.” His thumbs caressed each nipple into painful tightness.

  Jennie’s body arched helplessly forward into his touch and her breathing quickened.

  “This pleases you?”

  She had to swallow before she could speak. “Very much. Though it would also please me if you were similarly undressed.” She reached out to help him with his clothing, but he was as eager as a lad and skinned out of his tunic and breeches, dragging his boots from his feet without unlacing them fully.

  Jennie had seen his torso before when she and Napier tended his wound, but now there was a difference. The low light gilded him, making him something smooth and carved of marble, except where sandy hairs glinted on his chest, arms and legs. His penis pointed at her like a questioning, beckoning finger, bobbing slightly with each rapid beat of his heart, a passionate metronome. He lacked the steroidal over-development of modern body-builders, but his muscles were firm and defined, veins prominent beneath the skin of his arms and hands and belly. The harsh line of stitches on his ribcage made her catch her breath and reach out with gentle fingers.

  “Will you be all right?”

  He flattened her hand on his body with his own. “I was all right last time. Don’t worry so, Jeanne.”

  “Last time we weren’t…it wasn’t…this time will be very different, I think.”

  His eyes glinted down at her. “Will you do me an injury?”

  “Don’t jest, Tibald. I want to know you’ll be well.”

  He knelt and unlaced her boots in answer. She stepped out of them, gasping when he leaned forward to press his face against her abdomen, his bearded cheek tickling unbearably, his breath hot through the silky fabric of her panties, the last barrier between them. “Tell me what to do, Jeanne—for I want to throw you on your back and ease my suffering.”

  In a way she wanted nothing less than that herself—in the urgency of the moment it seemed a desirable solution to the heat they both felt—but if this were to be the only time they had together, she wanted to make the most of it. Who knew what the next day would bring?

  She cupped his face in her hands, looking down at him. How beautiful he was, in his stern, frank way. “I suppose we should try the bed you made for us.” She moved away and settled on his cloak. The hay rustled, but didn't poke through the close weave of the wool. She wriggled slightly, settling back at full length as she slithered out of her panties and set them aside. She dared not let him do those honors—in his eagerness he would doubtless ruin the fragile fabric.

  Tibald licked his lips as he saw her laid bare at last.

  “It’s softer than my tower bed, and for that I must thank you with a kiss. Come to me, Tibald.” Jennie held out her arms and with a rush, he settled next to her, twining close, bringing his mouth to hers. His tongue pushed at her roughly, but Jennie kept her lips closed until his mouth softened.

  Chapter 19

  It was like finding water in the desert to feel skin on skin at last. Tibald’s left hand moved down her back, pulling her tight against him. His right worked beneath her neck to cup the back of her head and move it in sync with the sweet exploration of his mouth. He lay with one of his legs between her thighs, his erection pressed hard against the flesh that clothed her hipbone. She could feel how their closeness excited him, feel the slight thrusting movements of his pelvis.

  Jennie reached down and gently closed her fingers around his cock. Tibald froze as if she had just laid a blade to his throat. She spoke against his lips. “If you continue to move like that, it will again be over too quickly.”

  He groaned. “Dear God. I…I will try, Jeanne, but oh—how I long to sheathe myself in you.”

  “I long for that, too, but did you not say you wanted me to teach you?”

  “I did.” He moved just a little in her hand, as if urging her to teach him quickly.

  Jennie smiled against his mouth before licking at the arch of his upper lip. His breathing had quickened, and she could feel his heartbeat in her hand. She released him, her fingers following his arm down to his hand, which was curved at the base of her buttock as though to separate her thighs from behind. She had to close her eyes briefly to savor the vision of him above her, thrusting, her legs locked at the small of his back. If she wasn’t careful to slow herself, she’d ruin this encounter with her own haste.

  She laced her fingers in his and slowly moved his hand along the back of her thigh in a caress. Tibald, still a fast learner, explored her flesh, gently pressing, massaging. Jennie brought his hand around front, her own heartbeat quickening in anticipation. Together their hands slid upward to her mons. Tibald’s breath rasped in his throat. Jennie swallowed hard, trying to speak clearly through her own intense arousal.

  “There’s a place women like to be touched.” She used her own index finger to find her clitoris, distended and swollen, fairly pouting out from her labia. “It’s much like your own…” Jennie paused, realizing she knew very few ancient French terms for the sexual equipment of men and women. Not to mention it was difficult to think beyond the sensations she was experiencing, and the thrill of teaching Tibald exactly how to please her. “Your own lance.”

  “My lance.” He chuckled and his mouth trapped hers. “My lance wishes very much to find a place in which to couch itself.” His fingers followed hers and circled her clitoris. “Your lance is small. And slippery as a snail. Will it yet grow, do you think? With careful attention?”

  Jennie’s laughter turned into a breathless squeak of pleasure as he pinched the soft, tender bud of nerves. Her legs trembled open, allowing him more access for his large, work-roughened hand.

  “You like this.” His comment was a statement, not a query, as he stroked downward, exploring on his own. She quivered. “And this.” The barest tip of his finger ringed the opening to her vagina, rough skin against the slick flesh, a contrast that made her squirm and close her legs on his hand to increase the stimulation. She couldn't control the movement of her hips, and when his fingertip circled once more, she tilted her pelvis so his finger slipped inside her for a moment.

  Tibald stopped, surprised. Then he pressed inward with that finger, exploring the hot, wet passage. She moved against his hand, reaching to guide his thumb to her clitoris, while his middle finger slid inside her.

  “Like this.” She showed him what she liked best, the gliding circle and the press, the pinch, the slow thrust of his hand. His breath was harsh and hot against her neck, ragged as if he had run miles.

  “I could do this with my cock, and then we would both take our pleasure—”

  “Yes—yes, in a moment—I promise. For now—oh, oh.” A tremulous heat boiled heartward from where his fingers labored sweetly. Her legs trembled and fell slowly apart, and she lay open, exposed to his gaze and his touch. “Just a little longer, Tibald—just a little rougher—please.” She was helpless to stop the heaving of her pelvis, clutching his wrist with a grip
of iron while she ground her flesh against his hand. She turned her head to look at him and saw he was observing their two hands where they disappeared between her legs. His teeth were bared and gritted as if he were striving to contain his own passion.

  The orgasm spread from her clitoris where his thumb pressed ever harder, rocking against her tissues. Her arms fell away from him, her head tilting back in the abandon of pleasure, fierce and hot. She heard herself calling his name, cradled in his arm, then tasted herself on his fingers as his hand moved to cover her mouth.

  “Someone will hear you, neighing like that. You’ve wakened the horses.” His laugh was soft, and as soon as she had mastered her cries, his hand returned to its duties, pressing, thrusting, rubbing, sending her upward again. This time she threw her own forearm over her mouth, biting at it when his touch pushed her to the convulsed thrashing of a renewed orgasm. His pelvis moved against hers, his cock trapped between their bodies, and she felt him coming as well, hot spurts of semen spreading over her belly, slickening them both. He groaned quietly, burying his sweaty face in her neck. Gradually they stilled, panting.

  “I’ve spent myself and for naught. You’ll laugh at me, Jeanne. I am a callow boy, a yearling buck, with the restraint of a babe.”

  Jennie threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed him, her mouth open, breath rushing past her lips. “You have pleased me beyond measure,” she whispered. “And now we will begin again.” Her fingers slid between their bodies to where his penis was slowly retracting and squeezed the sensitive tip of his glans. Tibald gave a startled jerk and a grunt. “Your lance will yet find a sweet place to lodge.”