The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series) (5 page)

"In this life, we are often called upon to submit to a course which is not of our choosing. I believe God presses us to this for a purpose, that of displaying our complete submission to His will for all the world to see. Submission is the key to a holy life."

Richard did not give any outward appearance of being submissive. Godric sighed and mentally girded himself for a battle of wills. Yet it was not his will against which Richard fought, but the Lord God's. Richard had all the appearance of a resolute foe, and foe would aptly describe him if he did not bend to God's will. No man could serve God if he would have no master; Richard was a man who was most comfortable in his own leadership, trusting none other. Not even God? Perhaps that was the wisdom of God's plan. Richard must learn to bend to a will higher, stronger, and harder than his own. He would not stand in the way or try to soften a blow of discipline from God when it was aimed upon a man, even such a man as Richard of Warefeld.

"It is agreed," Godric said, casting aside comfort and counsel, trusting Richard and the health of his soul to God Almighty. "You are to marry the damsel Isabel."

* * *

Excused by the brother in charge of novices, Richard lay on his face before the altar of Christ. Following Abbot Godric's advice, he was deeply in prayer. Like Jacob wrestling with an angel of the Lord, he wrestled with his will.

He did not want to give up the cloistered life.

He did not want to swear fealty to any but God's representative on earth, the Pope.

His course was set; he would not be turned from it by any man's whim, not even Lord Robert's.

Isabel was well dowered, he reasoned. Any man would be glad of her. Any man but him.

Her name floated in his mind like a hawk on unseen air currents, and his thoughts ran out of his control. She had changed little over the years. He had known her as a girl just short of womanhood, her skirts dirt-rimmed from play and her hair a dark tangle down her back. She had been... the only friend he could lay claim to. The holder of his whispered ambitions and contained loneliness. Aye, she had been a source of laughter when each day was only unremitting toil and each night aching solitude.

Malton had been noise and competition and tension, and he had understood what he was to do there: succeed. Excel. Bring honor to his name and to the name of his house. And if he did not make the friendships he had hoped for, what was lost? His duty was to become a feared and honorable knight; he did not require friends to learn his skills.

Yet Isabel had been friend to him.

Upon their growing, he with hair sprouting on his face and she with the beginning curves of womanhood, such friendship had seemed amiss. The other boys had noted it—how she sought him out and how easily she succeeded in securing his companionship; the smiles she bestowed upon him more than on any other. It was called infatuation, and to protect her name and his own, Richard had looked elsewhere. Isabel had not looked elsewhere, and as they had grown, her pursuit of him had exceeded all propriety, all modesty, all honor.

Malton was for but one purpose for Richard: to become the most renowned knight ever to be trained by Lord Henley. He had been set well on his path when he had chosen a higher calling. But before his call to the monkhood, he had been determined to win praise as a most worthy knight.

Strangely, his most enduring memories of that time were of Isabel. She had been comely always, a fact his brother Hubert had found pleasure in. She was promised to his brother. She was not for him. He was landless, the third son, and not yet a knight. He had nothing to offer a woman, and, even knighted, it was doubtful he would ever marry. Few knights did in an age of political alliances and arranged marriages; damsels with land and property were parceled out carefully, where they would do the most good.

Which was why Lord Robert was pressing for a match between Richard's house and hers. It was a good match for Robert and King Henry. But not for him. His heart, mind, and soul were set on serving God every day of his earthly life. No man, baron or priest, and certainly no woman was going to get in the way of his call.

Richard pressed his hips and shoulders against the cold stone. The nave arched before him like a portal to paradise, the cross the road he must tread to reach it. Thoughts of Isabel had no place in this chamber. He welcomed the damp cold of the spring night, urging it to drive all thoughts of Isabel away from him. His tempest now was with God, not flesh. He must find his way to salvation, a salvation in which no woman could have a part.

He did not want to marry.

He had been commanded by bishop, baron, and abbot to marry.

And if he did not?

Then he would display the very characteristic he must not show: rebelliousness. Refuse to marry Isabel and he would be accused of a rebellious will that would not bend. Such men were not permitted to seek a life among the Benedictines.

If he did not obey, he would lose life among the Brothers.

If he did obey, he would lose life among the Brothers. And gain an unwanted wife.

He was trapped, trapped into submitting to a marriage he had no desire for. But Isabel desired him; he could feel it even within the confines of the cloister. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice, though he doubted not that none else could. He knew her well. Year upon year he had watched her watch him. He knew well the signs of her desire.

Chapter 5

Just past Prime. Isabel was assisted in mounting her palfrey by Edmund. She was leaving the abbey. She had prayed the night into day, prayed for Richard to submit to the will of lord and abbot, prayed for him to take the gift from God which they had each been given. She had prayed for Richard and God had given her Richard; would Richard take the gift of Isabel?

She had seen the answer in his eyes.

Still, she had prayed for him to want her. To take her.

She had lost the battle for her pride years ago. It did not seem to matter, as long as she had not lost Richard.

But he had not come and still did not come. The hours while she had awaited the coming of Richard were many; what was one more hour upon such a burden as her heart already bore?

Her pride, even so small a thing now, would not allow her to wait forever within abbey walls for Richard to make his decision. If he wanted her—but nay, he would not want her, he would only submit to having her if he took her as wife, he would have to come to Dornei to get her. She would no longer wait while he deliberated and pleaded with God for intercession.

How could she want such a husband?

He was Richard.

Atop her palfrey, she nodded her thanks to Edmund and turned to say farewell to Brother John. In turning, she saw Richard approach. He did not come happily, she could see that though the sun was still weak and the air thick with night mist. Yet, he came. It was in his very visage, his hard and dark countenance, that she saw she was about to become a wife. Her heart trembled, crushed by her suppressed joy at his coming. Suppressed, yea—she must not allow him to see her joy, for in that he would read his defeat. But it was joy which all but choked her as Richard came to stand at the shoulder of her beast.

"By all authority, by church and king, we have been committed to marry," he said. The thin sun shone on his dark hair and against the angles of his face, making him look to her more of the lean ascetic than she remembered him. And more beautiful. For beautiful he was, with his almost black hair and dark blue eyes. A fine, straight nose he had, and a mouth that could smile and melt ice.

Though she had not seen him smile for an age. And he was not smiling now. "I am determined to submit to the will of those in authority over me. Will you submit?" he asked her.

Would she submit? How to contain the joy when it wanted to fly out of her to heaven itself? Submit to marry Richard? She would have walked to the shrine of Compostela in far-off Spain, on her knees, for the gift of being Richard's wife.

"Yea, I am content," she murmured, holding in her smile. "I will submit to the wisdom and guidance of those whom God Himself has placed above me in divine hierarchy."

Richard eyed her, not so far above him on her small palfrey. She appeared readily composed to accept the suddenness of baronial command. She was a woman, he surmised; such submission would come more readily to her. The whole situation was not as difficult for her as it most assuredly was for him. She had always had tender feeling for him, hardly a secret. He could see the glimmer of joy in her eyes even now, though she tried to hide it from him and the good brother at his side. Yea, it was an altogether more difficult thing for him; he was giving up a life's vocation. She was merely marrying and, thereby, fulfilling her God-given vocation.

"Come then. We shall see our duty done," he said, turning his back on her and marching across the courtyard into the chapel. Let the squire see to her dismounting; he would not look upon her any more than was necessary.

She followed, eagerly enough it seemed to him. Abbot Godric awaited them in the chapel, looking more pleased than Richard believed the occasion warranted. The ceremony, attended by the squire of Dornei, Brother John, Prior Phillip, and, of necessity, Isabel, was mercifully brief. Even so, he could feel the charge of emotion seeping from Isabel. She was happy. God forgive him, he did not want her happiness. Submission, yea. Duty, naturally. Not happiness. Never joy. He would find no joy in her. She must not find joy in him.

It was with such thoughts that he found himself married to her. Marriage: God's holy union of two souls and the bodies they indwelt. In body, life, and property they were joined. His own abbot had performed the deed, and he must indeed live with the result. How else to prove his submission?

But when in the history of Christ's holy church had any husband upon his nuptials worn the robes of a monk?

It was done now, though no exchange of rings had marked the ceremony. It only required that he transmit the kiss of peace to his newly made wife. Richard cast his eyes downward and looked into the face of the woman he had pledged himself to. She glowed. Isabel's eyes, as green-brown as moss in autumn, looked up at him, the joy she concealed within her body revealed in her eyes. Joy—not the quiet look of submission, but radiant and uplifted joy.

He stooped slightly, and she lifted her head in silent eagerness for his kiss. Brusquely, as cold and brief as a winter blast of northern air, he brushed his lips against hers. Soft, she was, and then the impression was pushed from him. He found no joy in their kiss. He made that plain to her. There was no joy for him in this union. They had joined their houses and their lands and, eventually, their bodies, but there would be no earthly pleasure for him in these things. Such pleasure he had cast beyond his reach. Such pleasure she could not tempt him to take.

"My prayers are with you," Abbot Godric said, the ceremony concluded. "My blessings as well, what little they may serve you."

"Your blessings and your prayers are most welcome, Father Abbot," Richard said. "Indeed, I covet your prayers as I reenter the world, shorn of my robes and my place."

"You have your place, Richard. God has prepared it and anointed you for it. You have only to obey."

"I have obeyed," Richard answered.

"As have I," inserted Isabel.

Richard looked askance at her. She radiated joy. What price her obedience? What value?

"And in obeying," Richard continued, "we will depart for Dornei."

And so they did, without noise or commotion. The brothers continued in their prayers and in their service to God as he rode out of the sheltering walls of the abbey into the green, wet, spring world. Father Abbot watched them go with Brother Anselm on one side and Brother John on the other. They were silent, each deep in prayer for Richard. And for Isabel, a willing bride for so reluctant a groom.

Richard did not look back. Isabel did not look back. Edmund did, and waved his farewell, it was an odd group they made, the newly wedded riding far apart from each other and the groom in monk's robes. It was a silent and solemn wedding party that made its muddy way to Dornei.

* * *

They arrived in good time, the mud-thick roads not delaying them overmuch. Birds sang with the joy of spring, and the sun rose to warm the air and clear the skies of the last traces of the damp night. Richard noted it all distantly. It was not his duty to take note of birdsong and sunlit treetops and the early blooms of spring. It was his duty to ride to Dornei. To Dornei he did ride. With his wife behind him.

The walls of Dornei rose up, a blunt vision of stone against the rising green of the surrounding countryside. Dornei was massive; double-walled and crenellated, and situated on a natural hilltop. No illegal holding, this, but a fine tower and wall built before the war for the rule of England raged between Maud and Stephen. Henry of Anjou ruled now, with the consent of both, and all had been mended. England was at peace after years of civil war. Dornei had come through that time well and intact, God be praised. Isabel's father, Bernard, had kept his holding secure in those troubled times. The land skirting the walls was divided neatly into fields just now coming into green, the earth brown and well broken by spade. It had the look of prosperity. The town clustered below the walls, a misshapen mass of brown roofs and age-blackened walls; a busy town of two roads and many merchants. The inhabitants of the town watched and whispered as their three-horse cavalcade rode past them to the gates of Dornei.