The Champion (55 page)

When her ankles began to ache, Monday retired to warm her hands at one of the chestnut-sellers’ braziers on the solid land edging the ice, while Alexander pulled Florian along in the bathtub. She watched man and child with a smile on her lips and a deep pang of affection twisting her heart, gut and loins. It was almost Christmas now, the New Year fast approaching and she could sense a change in herself, as if she were running ahead of the old season with her arms open to embrace the future. Not that anything had been settled concerning that as yet. But she thought so soon. Perhaps after Christmas. Both of them were bound for Winchester within the next few days, Alexander on the Marshal’s business, she to present another gown to the young queen as a Christmas gift from John. What happened after that remained to be seen. Smiling to herself, she turned and bought a pouch of chestnuts from the seller.

Piping hot, they burned her fingers, but the heat was wonderful, and they tasted divine, slightly floury with a smoky, roasted flavour. She looked for Alexander and Florian, intending to beckon them over to share, but a hand dived at her from behind and snatched two chestnuts from the pouch.

‘Well, well, who says that ghosts do not exist!’ declared Eudo le Boucher, his black eyes glittering. He juggled the chestnuts from hand to hand, and then cracked one open on a broken tooth. ‘Monday de Cerizay. Last I saw you was in some siege camp in Normandy in the company of the de Montroi brothers.’ He spat burnt fragments of shell on to the ice and chewed on the tender white nut. ‘What are you doing here?’

The cold of the day struck at Monday’s core. His tone was frankly delighted, but there was nothing of friendship in it. It was like being baited by a wolf. ‘I was taking pleasure in the day,’ she answered, and knew that she could not even make her escape because of the skates lashed to her feet.

Le Boucher smiled, the scars on his face livid with the cold. ‘You live in London?’ He looked at her hands, where these days she wore no rings, save the silver one that had been with her since her tourney days, and the gold one that was her mother’s.

‘Not always.’ She began to ease away from him and gazed around for Alexander. A couple of men and three women, obviously le Boucher’s companions, were standing off to one side, watching their exchange with idle scrutiny. The women’s faces were painted with cosmetics and one had a raucous laugh that reminded Monday of Grisel, the whore with whom she had fought over her mother’s possessions. Not one of them was sober, and the vapour clouding from le Boucher’s mouth and nostrils bore a powerful odour of ginevra.

Le Boucher cracked open the second chestnut. ‘Married?’ he questioned. ‘Someone’s goodwife?’

‘It is no concern of yours.’

Le Boucher arched one eyebrow. ‘Perhaps, and perhaps not.’ He looked her up and down, taking pointed notice of her masculine attire. ‘Do you always dress like that?’

‘If it suits me.’

‘Oh, it suits you, sweetheart.’ He grinned, his wolfishness emphasised by his broken, discoloured teeth. ‘But it’s hardly the garb of bewimpled respectability, is it?’

‘I doubt you would know respectability if it slapped you in the face.’

‘Try me.’ He extended his good cheek in mocking invitation.

Without warning, and at a tremendous pace, the oval bath-tub sliced across the ice, struck the side of le Boucher’s leg and bowled him from his feet. He landed heavily on his flank, the air whooshing out of him like a punctured bladder. The woman’s raucous laugh cracked out. Alexander skated up in the wake of the tub, Florian clinging to his back. He stooped to the guiding ropes and tugged the tub around, making sure that it accidentally knocked le Boucher’s head in turning. He also stumbled, when before he had been so sure of his balance, and the bone blade of the skate sliced open le Boucher’s hand.

Le Boucher was too winded and stunned by the force of his fall to yell or even curse. His companions started forward to help him, the loud woman still cackling and nudging the others, one of whom slipped and fell over on the ice with a howl of pain. Alexander deposited Florian in the tub, took Monday’s arm, and propelled them away from the danger.

Once they were far enough removed, he swished to a halt in order to remove his skates. He was breathing hard and his eyes were battle-lit. ‘Christ, if Florian had not been with us and my sword had been at my hip …’ He shook his head and muttered beneath his breath.

Monday stooped to untie her own blades. Her hands were shaking, and it was a struggle. She looked over her shoulder, but there was no sign of any pursuit. Alexander was watching too, his eyes never still for a moment. She made herself breathe slowly and deeply, the frozen air cauterising her lungs.

‘What did he say to you?’

She told him, and managed to remove her skates. ‘You mentioned once that he had approached Hervi with an offer of marriage. Do you remember?’

A look of disgust flickered across his face. ‘I could hardly forget, since it was the day you ran away, Hervi broke his leg and le Boucher left me for dead.’

She could sense the anger quivering in him, much of it still pent up from the incident a few moments ago. There had been a thousand changes since that day of which he had spoken, but those changes had only brought them round full circle. ‘Do you think he still wants me, or was he just baiting me to see how I would respond?’

‘You are Thomas of Stafford’s granddaughter,’ Alexander said bleakly. ‘Why should he not still want you?’

‘Jesu,’ she whispered, and huddled inside the short cloak, her teeth chattering with anxiety and revulsion as much as with cold.

‘At least he does not know where you live.’ His voice sharpened. ‘You didn’t tell him anything, did you?’

She shook her head numbly.

Eyes narrowed, Alexander glanced around, then relaxed slightly, puffing out a deep breath. ‘I doubt he will be in a fit state to set out on any kind of search for a while anyway,’ he said with grim satisfaction. ‘I hoped I had broken his leg as he broke Hervi’s, but I don’t think I hit him hard enough. Still, he’ll be limping for a while. He was more than half drunk too.’ He curved his arm through hers. ‘Come, you’re as white as the ice. I’ll take you home.’

They walked back to the city, taking a circuitous route to avoid the vicinity of the chestnut-seller’s brazier. Florian was too tired to do more than ask a few desultory questions about the man whom Alexander had run over with the bathtub, and an explanation that it had been an accident was accepted without more than a couple of obligatory ‘whys’.

The dusk was gathering as they approached Monday’s rented house, similar to but smaller than the one in Rouen, with a garden running adjacent to Cripplegate. In a world of frozen blue and silver, rime sparkling on every surface, hoary mist cloaking the distance, the bells of St Giles rang out the hour of vespers. Candle and rushlight glimmered in the dwellings and the smell of woodsmoke lay heavy on the air, the bluish layers adding to the mist.

Teasel barked behind the door and scrabbled at the wood with his paws. Monday removed the key from the hoop on her tunic belt and fitted it to the lock. As the latch gave, she turned to Alexander. ‘Stay with us for tonight,’ she said on a rush, as if the words had to be spoken before the door was fully open, an incantation on the threshold to protect the house from evil spirits. ‘The hearth is warm, and there is mutton stew and fresh bread.’

‘How could I refuse?’ he said a trifle wryly. ‘Food, warmth and company. What other ways are there to a man’s heart?’

At which juncture Teasel flung himself through the narrow opening and leaped upon Alexander with a yelp of joy, thereby sparing Monday the need to reply.

They ate the mutton stew and talked of mundane, everyday matters in front of their son. Alexander played knucklebones with him and taught him a simple game of dice until the little boy’s lids began to droop. Then he carried him up the loft stairs to the small, rope-framed bed, squeezed against the wall beside Monday’s. By the time he had been tucked in, Florian was sound asleep, his dark lashes lying like fans on his cheeks, his scrap of yellow blanket touching his nose. Teasel whined, circled several times, and curled up on the little boy’s feet.

Feeling a warm glow of protective tenderness, Alexander kissed his son and returned to the hearth. ‘Asleep already,’ he said, and picked up the knucklebones.

‘He plays until he drops then wakes up ready to play again,’ Monday said with a little shake of her head. She watched him toy with the knucklebones. The fluid movement, the coordinated grace had been evident even in the first days of his joining the tourney circuit as an abused, underfed stripling. She thought of the first time she had seen him, lying sallow and gaunt on his brother’s pallet amid the debris of Hervi’s bachelor existence. She had felt curiosity and compassion then. Friendship had grown, and become complicated by other appetites and more ambiguous emotions. They had made their dreams, lived them, and learned some difficult, painful lessons.

Up and down, toss and catch, as smooth as cream. She licked her lips and cleared her throat. ‘Does your offer of marriage still stand?’ There, the words were out, falling between them, but as stepping stones or a barrier she could not tell.

Alexander balanced the knucklebones on the back of his hand. ‘Why do you ask?’ His face was expressionless.

‘Because if it does … I want to accept.’

‘Would you have asked me tonight, if not for Eudo le Boucher?’

‘Yes,’ she said, her colour heightened, because the admitting made her shy and vulnerable, and his face gave nothing away. ‘I would. It has been in my mind for some weeks now … and … and always in my heart. If your offer does still stand I would like Hervi to wed us before witnesses as soon as it can be arranged.’

The knucklebones curved and turned in the air, and clattered down on the hearth tiles. Alexander stared at her, his fists clenched on his knees, his breathing swift and shallow. ‘If my offer still stands,’ he repeated hoarsely. ‘Woman, are you mad? I know I would be to deny you.’

She raised her hands to her braid, and unwinding its ribbons, shook her hair down around her shoulders in a bronze-brown skein of light, the movement symbolic, for the only man permitted to see a woman’s hair spilling free was the one who shared her bed and her life. He reached across the space between them, across the stepping stones to touch the strands of its shining curtain. Then he cupped her face on his palm and kissed her.

She made a soft sound in her throat and pressed forward to meet him, their bodies locking and straining. The salute of lips became the desperate pressure of mouth on mouth, the exchange of breath, and then the ragged gasp for air. The palm of his hand smoothed over her breast and waist, his other cupped her buttocks, and pulled her into his lap. And Monday, with the knowledge of experience and the wildness of need, dug her fingers in his hair and wriggled upon the hard bulge at his groin.

He leaped beneath her touch, and groaned. She curved her lips in pleasure at the sound, and felt a gathering, sensitive heat in the bowl of her pelvis. It had been three seasons since she had lain with John and derived any satisfaction from the encounter. Now she realised just how hungry she was. And surely Alexander must be starving, if what he had said about being celibate was true. Perhaps she ought not to wriggle so much. Perhaps he would not last as far as her own release.

Alexander was entertaining similar thoughts himself, together with some conscience-probing doubts. One dilemma might solve the other, he thought hazily as she pressed down on him, creating an almost unbearable friction. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced his will through the excruciating pleasure. This was how it had been in Hervi’s tent. A hasty coupling on the floor with garments bunched up out of the way, and nothing but sticky regret in the aftermath.

‘Wait,’ he panted, and seized her hips to make her stop. ‘No, Monday, no.’

She sat up straight and looked at him, her face flushed and her grey eyes hazy with desire. Then she bit her lip, and pushed her hand through her hair in a gesture that almost maddened him out of his reason. ‘It is too fast, isn’t it?’ she admitted with a shaken laugh. ‘But sweet Jesu, I don’t want to stop.’

Of their own volition his hands stroked up and down on her waist. ‘I remember what happened last time. Then it was fast and sudden too, like lightning.’

‘It was long ago,’ she murmured, moving lightly to the cadence of his touch. ‘And neither of us is drunk tonight … or innocent.’

‘I think I am drunk on you.’ He buried his face in her throat with a sound that was half laugh, half groan. ‘I fear I am going to burst!’

She twisted to nip his earlobe. ‘Not until I am ready, I hope.’

He grimaced. ‘It is not long since you miscarried of a child. What if you should quicken tonight?’

‘I won’t. Dame Hortense showed me ways of protecting myself.’

Her skin was warm against his lips, a rapid pulse beating beneath it; her hair was cool and slippery against the backs of his hands. Lures that were almost impossible to resist. He clung to a very precarious control, wanting to rush headlong, but knowing that for his conscience he had to speak. ‘There were old women on the tourney circuit who used to promise the camp women freedom too. But all too often they failed.’

‘Dame Hortense’s advice was sound, I promise you.’ She laughed and brought her hands up beneath his tunic and shirt to touch the naked flesh of his ribs, her nails gently raking. ‘If I did not trust her, would I be sitting in your lap doing this … or this?’ She shifted position so that she was straddling him.

Unable to speak beyond a croak of pure, tortured pleasure, Alexander shook his head, and ceased to think at all, except with his body.

The floor rushes were prickly, and they spread his cloak over them to blanket the stalks. There was a soft feather bed in the sleeping loft, but the presence of Florian and Teasel put it out of bounds. Nor, with the molten heat of their need, could they have borne to break apart for the time it took to climb the stairs.

Alexander tugged off his tunic and shirt, and then, in the soft red glow from the fire, removed hers too. There was a brooch to unpin and a drawstring to unfasten, neither of which could be accomplished in tearing haste, and he had perforce to temper his urgency to deal with them.