“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m undressing,” he replied, obviously.
“In front of Duke Henry and his men?”
Beresford shrugged. He was peeling his torn shirt off his now-clotted arm wound.
Duke Henry perceived this as his moment to depart, since it was clear what this Simon of Beresford intended. He had been vastly entertained by this interlude. Enlightened, too. Although he was sorry to see his part in it end, he motioned to the two guards to pick up Valmey and carry him to the boat, which would transport him to his doom at Henry’s camp.
Duke Henry turned back to Beresford and said, “We are sure to meet again.”
Beresford was in the act of dispensing with his shoes. The chausses were next. He answered, “Perhaps tomorrow, on the field of battle.”
Duke Henry shook his head. “The negotiations begin tomorrow.”
Beresford’s mouth twisted. “Negotiations,” he repeated with a touch of derision.
Duke Henry smiled. “They’ll take several weeks. More, if Stephen is stubborn. Perhaps less, without the aggravating factor of Valmey. As for your future role, let’s agree that you’ll leave the negotiations of that in your wife’s capable hands.”
Standing naked before the young man who was fated to rule the island nation, Beresford said, “She’ll have to convince me first.”
“She’ll convince you.” Duke Henry bowed and withdrew.
Beresford picked up the conversation with Gwyneth where he had left off. “Now, before you tell me what you’ve got to tell me,” he said, “I would like to point out that I’ve rescued you a few times, too. Admit it!”
Gwyneth was openmouthed, not from his statement, but from his actions. “What?”
“Yes, I might mention Valmey’s attack on our home, for I don’t suppose you have missed the significance of my order that you spend the first night of my departure at the Tower.”
“No, I did not miss that.”
Beresford smiled suddenly. “And for treating my wife so well, I suppose that I am entitled to the continuing protection of the three crones.”
Gwyneth smiled, too, remembering the conversation from their first meal together at the Tower. “I had forgotten about the Norns. But now that you remind me of them, I wonder ….”
Beresford frowned. “You don’t think I deserve their protection?”
“Of course you deserve their protection,” she returned, matter-of-factly, “although I don’t think you need it anymore. I was wondering instead whether they still existed.”
Beresford was surprised. “I had not heard that the three crones had died.”
Gwyneth shook her head. “No, I mean, I wonder whether my Norse god and goddess have survived. Loki’s magic seems spent, and in his place has come another little mischief-maker who, if I am not mistaken, goes by the name of Eros! And watching you fighting Valmey just now, I was put in mind of another new force. Well, not a new force exactly, more of an ancient one. Different and more powerful.” She considered his magnificent nakedness. “Yes, you put me in mind of the Greek god Hephaestus, the smith.”
Beresford was glad to hear that the Valkyries might no longer exist, although he had rather liked the Tyr fellow and the Norns who protected him. However, he did not know about this Eros or this Hephaestus, nor did he care. In any case, he was in no mood for a discussion of heretical gods and goddesses, Norse or Greek—nor even a pious one concerning the True God. He commanded impatiently, “Well, get undressed, woman!”
“What?”
“You’re joining me in the river.”
“What?”
“I’ve got to wash the blood off my arm,” he said practically, “as well as the dirt and sweat, and I want you to join me.” He stepped beside her to help her with her clothing. “More to the point, I want you naked because I saw some bramble bushes not far from here.”
“Bramble bushes?”
He looked at her curiously. “Have you lost your wits, woman?”
“Yes, I think so. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about that evening in the queen’s pleasance when I rescued you from Valmey’s clutches.”
Gone was her bliaut. “You are?”
“There was nothing more I wanted to do that night than take you to a spot just outside the Tower walls, by the riverbank, wild with brambles. I noticed some here earlier down by the river.”
As she stepped out of her kirtle, she began to catch on. “You wanted to take me to the bramble bushes that evening?”
“You threatened me with knives,” he reminded her, as if this comment would make any more sense to her than anything else he had said thus far.
In a strange sort of way, his world did come into focus for her. She began to laugh. At that same moment, her under shift floated to the ground. She was as naked as he.
“I can’t believe it,” she breathed, shaking her head.
“You did,” he insisted with relish, “you threatened me with knives.”
“No, I mean that I can’t believe you just undressed in front of Duke Henry,” she replied, laughter still rippling through her.
“Don’t change the subject,” he chided, taking her hand and leading her to the riverbank.
“Is it not all the same subject, then,” she wondered aloud, “your undressing and your wanting to take me to the bramble bushes that evening? After all, I threatened you with knives on the very subject of my loyalty to Duke Henry.” She could not resist adding, “Which loyalty may just save your neck.”
A silver ladder of moonlight stretched across the water, uniting the two shores. “Be glad,” he said, easing himself into the inky water, “for my neck is connected to other parts of some interest to you.”
“While we’re on the subject, I will admit that it was those other parts,” she said, following him into the cool waters, “that were of interest to me that evening in the pleasance.”
It was Beresford’s turn to laugh. “We were of the same mind, then, which, now that I think of it, probably happens more often than either of us are aware. But as for the pleasance, I did not even consider it as a possible site for lovemaking.”
“No? It is, sire, generally considered the ideal site for lovemaking.”
Beresford dunked his head and came up spitting water and swirling wet hair. “Is that what you want, madam, courtly bows and practiced kisses?”
“You think the bramble bushes superior to the pleasance?”
He waded over to her, put his arms around her, and drew her next to him so their slippery bodies met fully. He whispered a blunt suggestion in her ear, in terms that were far from courtly and practiced.
Though stimulated by the suggestion and the circumstances and her deep, abiding love for him, she hesitated.
He drew his head back and looked at her. He said, with a very attractive gleam in his eye, “I dare you to do that with me, snug in the dirt under the cover of bramble bushes.”
Thus challenged, she accepted. To their mutual delight.
Author’s Note
In August of 1153, the young Duke Henry of Anjou negotiated a peace with King Stephen of England, but it was not until November of that year that Stephen acknowledged Henry as his successor and heir to the kingdom by hereditary right. Stephen died in October of 1154. Henry II was crowned in Westminster Abbey two months later and reigned during a period of peace and prosperity until 1189.
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