“‘Success, however, will always consume the foolish man with pride,’” Rainulf read, “‘and worldly comforts diminish one’s spiritual steadfastness, tainting it with fleshly temptations...’”
Picking up her burnisher—a dog’s tooth attached to a stick—Corliss rubbed the convex little halo, careful to use just the right pressure. Presently the gold’s rather dull gleam began to take on a blindingly brilliant shine, and she smiled to herself, proud of her efforts.
“‘At this time in Paris there lived a young woman named Héloïse, who was the niece of Fulbert, a canon of the Church, and so beloved of him that he went to some trouble to provide her with an education.’” Rainulf looked up from his reading. “You know, Corliss, Héloïse was a remarkable woman in her own right, even before she met Abelard. At seventeen, she was already renowned for her learning. They say she knew Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin...’” He fell silent. When Corliss glanced up from her work, she saw him staring at the ever-brightening halo, his expression rapt. “So that’s how it’s done.”
Rising, he came to lean over her, one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the edge of her desk. She continued polishing the gold, her eyes on her work, her thoughts on Rainulf Fairfax. His loose shirt hung down, brushing her lightly. With every breath he took, she felt the linen shift against her.
“That’s quite extraordinary,” he said. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
I can’t stop thinking about you, she wanted to say. Instead she merely shrugged and kept burnishing the gold, even after it had attained its maximum shine.
“You’re exceptionally talented, you know,” Rainulf said quietly. “And very clever. More than clever. I watch you when you come to my lectures... standing there in the back, as if you’re afraid to sit down. You follow every word I say—I can see it in your eyes, that light of understanding, that intellectual curiosity. That’s more than I see in a lot of my students, I assure you. And you’re quite accomplished for a woman, especially one of your background. You know how to read and write. You’re fluent in three different languages—”
“My French is abominable,” she said. “I speak it like an Oxfordshire peasant.”
He sat down again, smiling. “You are an Oxfordshire peasant.”
“Not anymore,” she said crossly.
Rainulf sat forward. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s just that I don’t fancy sounding like one of Roger Foliot’s villeins every time I open my mouth. Everyone in Oxford speaks such elegant French, with no accent.”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “You could lose your accent. It wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Really?”
“Why not? It’s just a matter of training yourself. You’ve got one of the quickest minds I’ve ever seen. I’ll help you. You can read aloud from books of Frankish literature and history, and I’ll correct your pronunciation. And in the meantime, you’d be learning something.”
She twirled the burnisher absently between her thumb and forefinger. “I wouldn’t mind learning a bit of history.”
He sat on the edge of his seat and leaned on her desk, the light of excitement in his eyes. “You can learn other things, too, if you like. I could tutor you in the trivium and the quadrivium. Grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry—anything you want. You could become an educated woman, a woman of letters, like Héloïse.”
She could be like the great and learned Héloïse. Was that possible?
He rested a hand on her arm. “I’d love to teach you. Tell me you’ll let me.”
She chewed her lip. “You want to remake me. To create a new person.”
He removed his hand, shaking his head. “Not a new person. I’m quite fond of the person you are. I just want to... polish you a bit. The way you polish the gold leaf with that tool of yours, to make it even shinier. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that why you came to Oxford and sought your freedom? To change yourself? I’d only be refining what you started.”
Corliss nodded slowly. “All right.” She allowed herself a wicked little smile. “Under one condition. You’ve got to let me do something about this hall.”
He shook his head resolutely; this was an old argument between them. “I like it the way it is,” he insisted, looking around at the bare, whitewashed walls. “I don’t want angels and unicorns and trailing ivy everywhere I look.”
“I wouldn’t do anything undignified. You’d love it.”
“It’s just not necessary. I’m happy with my home the way it is.”
“Happy? Rainulf, in the five weeks we’ve been living together, I’ve seen you smile perhaps half a dozen times. I’ve heard you laugh exactly twice. You don’t know the meaning of happiness.” She grinned and leaned toward him. “Let me paint a circle of dancing monkeys around this window.”
A burst of laughter escaped him. “Dancing monkeys? That’s dignified?”
“You see? It makes you happy just to think about those monkeys. If you could actually see them every time you glanced at this window, think how it would lift your spirits!”
“Corliss,” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Oh, Corliss. Sometimes you seem so innocent and naive—wide-eyed in wonderment over everything. And then, other times you’re so frighteningly astute. But when you’re both at the same time, as now...” He held his hands up, grinning. “You disarm me. I have no defense against you. Go ahead. Paint all the monkeys and unicorns you like.”
She fairly jumped out of her seat. “Really?”
“Really.” He nodded toward her work. “Are you finished there?”
She shook her head. “I still have to do the angel’s halo.”
He settled into his seat and crossed his long legs. “Then I’ll continue reading... unless it’s boring you.”
“Nay,” she lied. “It’s fascinating.” It was Rainulf’s company she wanted, of course, and not more of Master Abelard’s treatise on himself. But she was quite happy to put up with one in exchange for the other. What enervated her wasn’t the dullness of the Historia Calamitatum, but the heat. Her tunic was stifling; sweat trickled between her bound breasts, making her squirm.
Why suffer? she decided. If Rainulf can relax at home in just a shirt and chausses, so can I. Rising, she flung aside her belt and pulled the heavy wool garment over her head, then untied the neck of her shirt, reached in, and unwound the strip of linen from around her breasts. Rainulf stared, but said nothing.
“Ah,” she breathed, taking her seat once more, “that’s better.” She picked up her tiny knife and proceeded to cut the angel’s smaller halo out of the sheet of gold leaf.
Rainulf cleared his throat and read Abelard’s account of having contrived to live in Canon Fulbert’s home and tutor his niece, for whom he was “burning with desire.”
“‘What more can I say? We were soon united, not just under the same roof, but in our hearts. Using her tutelage as an excuse to be together, we gave ourselves over to the expression of our love. Our lessons permitted us the privacy our love demanded, and over our open books, we spoke more of love than of our reading, and exchanged kisses more than we studied. My hands caressed her breasts more often than they turned the pages.’”
Rainulf paused, frowning at the manuscript in his hand, his ears crimson.
“Go on,” Corliss said. He licked his lips and continued reading as she softened the gesso with her hot breath and positioned the delicate gold leaf.
“‘Our ardor left no manner of lovemaking untried, and we welcomed the most novel expressions of physical passion. We embraced these acts of love with great fervor, being all the more ravenous for our prior inexperience.’”
He refolded the sheaf of parchment. “That’s enough for now. You’re not really interested in all this.”
“Yes I am,” she said—quite truthfully this time. “Please go on.”
Rainulf studied Corliss as she went back to burnishing the gold leaf. Was she just having a bit of fun at his expense by embarrassing h
im? His gaze was inexorably drawn to her shirtfront, open to midchest, revealing the ivory flesh between her breasts. Their perfect roundness was evident through the filmy linen... They were just the right size to fit in the palm of a hand.
My hands caressed her breasts more often than they turned the pages, Abelard had written. Our ardor left no manner of lovemaking untried... If Héloïse’s charms had been comparable to those of Corliss, Rainulf could easily imagine the great man losing his head over her—and suffering mutilation and disgrace as a result.
Rainulf sat back and rubbed his damp palms on his wool-encased thighs. Perhaps he’d been rash in proposing to tutor Corliss. It seemed suddenly unwise to think of their bending their heads together over the same book, hour after hour. Unwise, but... a most enchanting prospect nonetheless. He liked being with her. Whenever he came home from a lecture, he hoped she was here. When he saw her, his spirits lifted. When she smiled that dazzling smile of hers, they soared. Colors seemed more vivid when he was in her company; things that he touched felt different, more... there. Her very presence heightened his senses, made him more alive than he could ever remember having been. He craved her companionship as some men crave strong drink.
“Well?” she said without looking up from her work.
He found his place in the Historia Calamitatum and read on a bit to himself, finding no more descriptions of ardent lovemaking, at least for the next page or so. “‘The more these pleasures consumed me, the less attention I devoted to the study of philosophy and to my school...’”
While Corliss labored over her miniature, Rainulf recounted the horror of the lovers’ discovery “in the act,” Canon Fulbert’s rage, the birth of their son, their secret marriage, and the canon’s revenge, carried out by some of his friends and relatives: “‘They cut off those parts of me with which I had committed the sins that had so infuriated them.’”
Corliss sat motionless for a moment, holding the burnisher poised above the angel’s radiant halo. “Now when he says, ‘those parts of me with which...’”
“They castrated him,” Rainulf said softly. “They bribed his servant to let them in during the night, and—”
“My God.”
“Yes.”
“Was he asleep?”
“Well... at first. But I imagine one could hardly sleep through... that.”
“How many were there? In the group that attacked him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was Abelard a large man?”
“Aye. Tall and well built. Why do you ask?”
She set the tool down and crossed her arms. “Well, it seems to me that, if he were awake, and if he were a man of some strength, and if his enemies were not too numerous—”
“Then he could have defended himself?” Rainulf asked. “Fought off his attackers?”
“Aye. From his position on the bed, he should have been able to kick one or two in the stomach, perhaps punch... Why are you shaking your head like that?”
“How little you know of fighting, Corliss.”
“I know enough.”
“You know hardly anything,” he said grimly. “In point of fact, Abelard was outnumbered and caught by surprise. But even if it had been broad daylight, and a fair, one-on-one fight, I doubt he would have prevailed, regardless of his size. He was an academic, Corliss. A creature of the mind.”
“He was also the eldest son of a knight of Brittany.”
“Aye, but he renounced his birthright, and was never trained as a soldier. Without the proper training—or its equivalent in experience—one can’t hope to defend oneself physically against any but the weakest opponents. I saw too many wellborn, inexperienced men on Crusade. They all met early deaths.”
“But you didn’t.”
He hesitated, never eager to discuss this part of his past. “I knew how to fight,” he said tersely. “Even though I was a second son, and destined for the Church, my father insisted on training me. As a soldier is trained—to kill or be killed.” A memory surfaced in Rainulf’s mind—a hazy image of a small, towheaded child and the golden giant who had sired him, squaring off in a castle courtyard. The yard had been paved with slate, and his father hurled him onto it repeatedly and ruthlessly; he was often bruised head to toe during his youth.
“And then,” he continued, “I got in plenty of practice at the University of Paris. There was always one scrape or another.”
“You?” she asked incredulously. “Getting into scrapes? Over what?”
Women, mostly. “This and that.” He held up the sheaf of parchment. “Shall I continue reading?”
“Nay. I’m done here, and...” Color rose in her cheeks. “Would you be willing to... that is... I was wondering if you’d teach me how to fight.”
He blinked at her. “You’re a woman.”
“All the more reason I should know how to defend myself, wouldn’t you say?”
He must have hesitated too long, because she shrugged and turned away, saying, “If you don’t want to, that’s all right. I don’t plan on courting danger.”
“But you do court danger, Corliss. Every time you join in the crowd that gathers around Victor, or share a pint with one of his followers, you’re drawing unwanted attention to yourself.”
“I just like to hear what they have to say. That doesn’t make me some kind of fanatical—”
“It makes you appear so to those who don’t know you well. And then there’s that peddler.”
She groaned. “Rad is harmless. I’ve told you that a thousand times. He’s like a child.”
“I don’t like the way he keeps coming around, hoping to find you here, even when he’s got nothing new to sell you. And the way he looks at you... There’s something in that look. He sees too much. Why do you encourage him?”
She shrugged. “I like him. I feel a little sorry for him, too. Everyone treats him like some kind of animal. He only seeks me out because I’m nice to him.”
“Look, Corliss, I try not to worry, but I do. I can’t help it.”
“Well, don’t. Even if something happened, I really do think I’ll be able to take care of myself. I’ve decided I’m going to buy a dagger.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Ah, so it’s unladylike to carry a weapon, as well as to learn how to fight? This is beginning to sound like some grand scheme on the part of men to keep us as weak and helpless—”
“It has nothing to do with your being a woman,” he said. “Have you ever handled a dagger?”
She hesitated. “Nay, but—”
“That takes practice, too. Do you know what would happen if you started waving one in front of an attacker? Chances are he’d take it away from you and use it on you.” He sighed in frustration. “It’d be safer if I taught you how to defend yourself with your fists and feet. Perhaps I should show you one or two moves.”
“It really isn’t necessary,” she said, tidying up her desktop.
He stood. “Nay, I insist.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. He noticed she seemed to be trying not to smile. “Why, you little... How did you do that?”
To what?” she asked disingenuously.
“Turn things around so smoothly. Got me trying to talk you into it.”
“Is that what I did?”
He grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet. “Come along before I change my mind. We can do this out back in the stable yard. All that clover will cushion your falls.”
“And yours,” she added, grinning.
* * *
“All right, now you try it,” Rainulf said, lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He wished it weren’t so damn hot. “Like I showed you.”
Corliss nodded and fingered her sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes, then grabbed her own shirt by its hem and flapped it, fanning herself. She hadn’t an ounce of pretense, and he found that oddly fetching. Back before he’d taken his vows, his taste had run to women of refined and calculated beauty—women who pain
ted their faces and laced their kirtles tight, who rubbed fragrant oils into their skin and bedecked themselves with jewels before a tryst. It used to excite him to think that a woman had taken pains to make herself alluring just for him.
None of those women would ever have asked him to teach her how to fight, that’s for sure. So far this afternoon he’d shown her how to break a man’s fingers, nose, and kneecaps. She’d proven an eager pupil and a fast learner, and she was stronger than she looked. Still, it was clear she was tiring. He’d make this the last demonstration of the day.
She turned her back to him and adopted a ready stance—feet spread, hands at her sides. “Go ahead.”
He came at her from behind and wrapped his arms around her upper chest, tight.
“Like this?” Corliss gasped, shoving her fists beneath his arms and pushing.
“Does it seem like it’s doing any good?”
She grunted with the strain of trying to dislodge his arms. “Nay.”
He released her and turned her around by her shoulders. “That’s because you did it wrong. This is what I showed you.” He crossed his arms over his chest, slid them up, and flung them out wide. “That’ll work on any but the strongest opponent. Try again?”
Breathless, she nodded and turned around. Again Rainulf locked his arms around her. This time she executed the maneuver perfectly, breaking his hold and wheeling around to face him, laughing delightedly.
“Do your worst!” she challenged. “Come on. I can take you!”
He smiled. “Ah, you’re invincible now, are you?” The prospect of grappling with Corliss was inviting—too inviting. The lesson—with its unavoidable physical contact—had been trying enough in its own way. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and turned back toward the house. “Perhaps tomorrow. We’re both tired.”
Lords of Conquest Boxed Set Page 187
