The Champion (26 page)
The Monday of the wimple and the downcast eyes was a stranger who watched from a distance as a wanton, wild-haired young woman offered herself without inhibition to the man poised over her.
He stroked the place between her thighs until she moaned, and when the moan changed pitch and caught in her throat, he thrust into her, and stifled her voice with another kiss that surged and retreated in rhythm with the motion of his body. Above her, his breathing was ragged, and he was trembling with the force of caged desire. Tighter and harder, swollen and desperate.
Monday tore her mouth from his and screamed through her clenched teeth. Her nails clawed across Alexander’s damp linen shirt and dug through the fabric into taut flesh as ripple upon ripple of exquisite sensation shuddered through her loins. Alexander gasped against her ear, and with a final, powerful lunge, brought himself to the bursting ecstasy of completion.
He rolled over to avoid crushing her, his breath tearing in his throat, his eyes already closing as physical release finished what drink, lust and the nervous energy engendered by jousting had begun.
Monday’s head continued to swim. The place between her thighs burned and flickered. She closed her eyes, and felt better.
Tendrils of sleep unfurled and began to wrap around her, but she was uncomfortable. ‘Alex …’
‘Morning,’ he mumbled. ‘Talk in the morning.’
‘I’m cold, hold me.’
He rolled over and gathered her in his arms. She could smell the wine on his breath. ‘Warmer in bed,’ he muttered.
Together they crawled beneath the coverlet of the pallet that had once belonged to her parents. Alexander smoothed her hair, stroked her arm, and began to snore. Monday burrowed against him, and within moments, she too was asleep.
In the chill of the dawn, Monday woke shivering and alone, and was immediately assaulted by several unpleasant sensations. There was a violent ache behind her eyes, a churning in her stomach, and between her thighs there was a dull, raw throb. She groaned softly and rolled over, willing consciousness to disappear.
The coverlet was gently pulled up over her shoulders, imparting warmth, and for a moment, disoriented, she thought of her mother. Her vision of a white, maternal hand was swiftly banished by the sight of one that was long-fingered and tanned, with close-clipped nails, and she tightened her lids in fear, but it was too late. Other, shocking images crowded upon her inner eye – those fingers on places far more intimate than her shoulder – stroking, playing upon her flesh like a musician upon a harp, flickering between her thighs until she knew nothing but the sharpness of the hunger and the sweetness of the pain.
‘Monday?’ Alexander’s voice was anxious and soft. Had she opened her eyes again, she would have seen the guilt in his, but, unable to cope, she pretended that she was still dead to the world. Was he wearing his clothes, or would she see him naked if she raised her lids? Nausea flared as she remembered the surge of their bodies last night in the act of lust. Perhaps it was just a sinful dream; perhaps if she kept her eyes shut it would go away and she would not have to face the cold light of morning and things she would rather not know. She lay perfectly still, forcing herself to breathe deeply until he withdrew his hand.
There was silence, and she knew that he was standing over her, deciding whether to waken her or not. Then he sighed. ‘Monday, I have to go and tend the horses. I’ll come back later, and we can talk.’
She willed herself to keep up the pretence. In, out, in, out, her ribcage rising and falling with never a variation until he gave up and she was alone.
Gingerly Monday raised her head from the pillow and gazed through her snarled hair into the grey dawn light. The tent was in a state of minor chaos, indicating that she had not tidied it as was her usual habit before retiring. A sheet of vellum lay on the floor near the pallet, Arabic numerals boldly scrawled in brown ink, and her wimple was strewn half across it.
‘Jesu,’ she whispered and buried her head in the pillow. It was a dream, she told herself, nothing more than a fevered dream induced by too much wine. But when she turned over and sat up, her body gave her pretence the lie. Blood dabbled her inner thighs, and there was a raw throb at her core. She could smell the sourness of last night’s wine and the body odours of vigorous bed sport.
Time and again she had sworn to herself that the tourney road would not be her downfall, and yet her resolve had failed her at the first temptation. Her stomach heaved and she made a sudden dive for the piss-pot, hanging over it, retching drily. Spots of lurid colour danced across her vision, accompanied by lancing pain.
When finally she was able to move, she staggered to the water jug, poured some of the contents into a wooden bowl, and washed herself thoroughly, scrubbing at her thighs with a linen washcloth until her skin was red and sore. Then she donned her clothes and bundled her hair into a working kerchief.
You’ve gold hidden in here
… She clenched her teeth on a fresh wave of nausea, and snatching the bloodied sheet from the pallet, thrust it beneath her arm and left the tent.
The brightening dawn made her wince and her headache increased until it sat like a lead ingot across her brows. How could her father have abused himself like this day upon day or did the body become so poisoned after a while that it no longer recognised the symptoms except as part of a general malaise?
Monday made her way down to the river bank and threw the sheet into the water. Then she pummelled at the cloth with a stone until the blood had diluted to the merest faded stain. She wrung out the linen and spread it over some bushes to dry. The camp sprawled before her gaze, a vast field of tents and baggage wains, soldiers and horses. Its size was swollen by the presence of Prince John, Count of Mortain. She could see his banner fluttering from a tent pole, and the surrounding area was filled with the toing and froing of squires, messengers and servants. A fresh offensive against the French was probably imminent, and with it, dangerous but steady employment for Hervi and Alexander. She shivered at the thought, some of her fear for them, some for herself. It did her no good to be too dependent on them. Trust was too easily betrayed.
That knowledge uppermost, she left her laundry and turned towards the horse lines.
Alexander was grooming Hervi’s dun, his arm sweeping vigorously over the deep-golden coat. Monday paused to watch him, and fought a battle of wills with her courage. Sooner or later they would have to face each other, but what was there to say? Last night should never have happened but it had, and nothing could alter the fact. Friendship and mutual comfort had been overmatched by lust.
At the end of a long stroke, he raised his head, saw her, and immediately abandoned his grooming. ‘I left you to sleep,’ he said awkwardly as he approached and then halted an arm’s length away.
Monday eyed him warily, her hands clenched at her sides. No words came, for she did not know how to tackle the situation. Did Alexander see her as a shameless wanton, or as an innocent who had made a terrible mistake? And should she view him as a calculating seducer, or someone who on the spur of the moment had cast his reason to the wind?
He rubbed his forehead, which was marred by two vertical frown lines. ‘For what it is worth, I am sorry,’ he said. ‘We were both gilded to the eyeballs last night, but I admit the fault is mine. If I had been sober and in my right mind, and if Hervi hadn’t …’
‘If Hervi hadn’t what?’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. What we have to …’
‘Yes, it does,’ she said fiercely. ‘Tell me what you were going to say.’
Alexander sighed. ‘You know that Hervi rebuked me yesterday for teaching you to read and write. He says that few men will desire an educated wife, that it is pointless to give you wings when you are never going to fly, and …’
‘Even fewer men will want a wife who is not a virgin,’ she pointed out.
‘You could marry me,’ he said, ‘then you could soar to your heart’s content.’
Monday stared at him, her lips still parted from her last remark. At the back of her mind she had expected him to make just such an offer. It was the least that honour demanded, and although the code had been violated last night, she knew that Alexander had an innate sense of what was honourable. ‘What will Hervi say?’
‘Be damned to Hervi,’ he said tersely, then shrugged. ‘Hervi will be as furious as a wild boar, but in the end he’ll see sense. He might even be relieved. It will stop him rejecting offers from other undesirables.’
‘So he has had other offers for me?’ she pounced.
Alexander’s lip curled. ‘Eudo le Boucher approached Hervi a while ago and he’s been pursuing my brother for an answer.’
‘And Hervi has not found it possible to give him an outright refusal?’ Monday’s voice seethed with loathing and fury. ‘My father chose well when he named your brother my guardian. He might as well have left me defenceless amidst a pack of wolves! Don’t touch me!’ She took a swift step backwards as he held out a conciliatory hand.
His eyes darkened and he flinched at her rejection. ‘Do you truly believe that Hervi would sell you to Eudo le Boucher?’
She bit her lip and felt the treachery of tears at the back of her eyes. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more.’
‘Nothing ill of Hervi. He only has your well-being at heart.’
‘Like yourself,’ she scoffed.
Colour burned across his cheekbones. ‘I am offering you marriage now,’ he said stiffly. ‘Your honour will be restored, and so will mine. It will be for the best.’
‘And you will love and cherish me all my days.’
‘Your life will be mine.’
Monday swallowed the urge to hurl the offer back in his face as worthless dross, for it was not, and he was doing his best in a very awkward situation. A pity that it was not enough. If he had taken her in his arms, kissed her tenderly and said that she was his life’s blood, she might have yielded. Faced by his practicality, and the bewildering surfeit of her own volatile emotions, she kept her distance.
‘I need time alone to gather my wits.’ She pressed her hand to her aching brow. ‘My brains are still so addled that I scarce know my head from my heels.’ Which was only half the truth. With each passing moment her mind was becoming clearer. ‘Finish with the horses,’ she said. ‘I’ll seek you out later when I don’t feel quite so sick.’ Before he could protest, she turned away towards the tents, the set of her spine brooking no interference. Nor, although she was tempted, did she glance over her shoulder. There was no point in looking back.
As she approached her own dwelling, her step grew more cautious, and when she drew aside the flap it was with a stealthy hand. The interior, however, was empty and she breathed a sigh of relief. Feeling queasy from her confrontation with Alexander, she could not have faced Hervi too.
‘I cannot marry him,’ she said to the stiff linen side of the tent. ‘I would be chaining myself to a living hell.’ She could not live the life that her parents had done, watching herself and Alexander slowly dying from its vagaries. They did not even have love to sustain them, and the emotions boiling in the air just now could as easily brew into bitterness and loathing as they could into abiding affection. She saw an image of herself in five years’ time, her vitality extinguished, her body exhausted. There was a child at her feet, a baby at her breast and another in her belly. Alexander’s tawny eyes were ignoring her to fix on some sparkling gossamer creature of wealth and privilege who was simpering at him among the crowd.
Monday pressed her palm against her flat stomach as the horrifying thought crossed her mind that she might already be with child. ‘No!’ she denied, and tried to comfort herself with the commonly held lore that a woman never conceived the first time. Besides, done was done, and there was nothing to be gained by wringing her hands. She had to be practical, and she had to act swiftly while there was still time.
It was the work of a moment to unlock her coffer and remove the two pouches of her dowry silver from its false bottom. Ten marks in all, a hundred and thirty shillings. She stowed them in her leather travelling satchel, and crammed on top her needles, skeins of thread and sewing shears. She added a comb, a clean chemise and a spare tunic, stuffing everything down to leave room for two apples and a hunk of bread tied up in her spare wimple. Finally she looped a leather water bottle over her arm, swung her cloak around her shoulders, and was ready.
On the threshold of the tent she hesitated, and turned back to the writing instruments still littered about from the night before. She cut the quill to remove the dried ink from its tip, drew the sheet of vellum forward, and beneath the Arabic numerals wrote:
It might be for the best, but it is better this way. Do not seek me for you will not find me. Farewell and God keep you
. She bit her lip as she wrote the first letter of her name, and she had to dash a swift hand across her eyes, but her intention did not waver. Setting her pen aside, she wafted the vellum in the air to dry the ink, and then concealed the note beneath Alexander’s cloak. She wanted him to find it, but not for it to be immediately visible, for she needed some space to make good her escape.
This time when she emerged from the tent, she made her way directly across the camp towards the main roadway leading to Gournai.
Hervi bunched his fist, drew back his arm, and felled Alexander with a single, furious blow. ‘You brainless whelp!’ he roared. ‘I ought to chop off your balls and nail them to that quintain post over there!’ He hauled Alexander to his feet for the sheer purpose of knocking him down again.
Alexander spat blood where a tooth had sliced his gum, and struggled to sit up in the dust. He had known that Hervi would react in just such a manner to being told what had happened but he wondered just how far the beating would go before Hervi recovered his senses. ‘I’ve spoken to Monday, asked her to wed me!’ he cried as his tunic was seized in a bear grip and once more he was hauled upright.