To Defy a King (13 page)

The King's officers visited the castle and Hugh's father issued pledges concerning his goods and chattels and gave the men an open hand to search where they willed. 'We have nothing to hide,' he said, spreading his arms.

Mahelt was a model of demure diligence when the officers came to inspect her mother-in-law's chamber. The fabric cupboard, when unlocked by Ida, revealed several bolts of everyday linen, a decent green wool and Ida's red silk, although it was only a quarter of its previous size. Tripes growled at the men and bared his teeth. His collar of red braid was a match in hue for the glorious silk gown his young mistress was wearing. 'He's only got three legs,' Mahelt said pertly to the searchers. 'He's already paid his taxes.'

When they had gone, Mahelt caught Ida's eye and the women burst out laughing. Partly it was a release of tension and even anger that the King could send men to search their personal chambers and raid in the name of his greed. Mahelt thought it an enormous pity that Tripes hadn't bitten their ankles.

'I wonder how long it will be before I can have my other cloth back,' Ida said with a wistful sigh.

Mahelt frowned, considering the problem. 'You'll just have to buy some more in Norwich to tide you over,' she said and that started Ida laughing again. Eventually she sobered and wagged a mock scolding finger.

'You had better change out of that gown, my girl, if you are going to help me with the cheese-making this afternoon,' she said.

A week later they heard that their house at Thetford and the priory had been searched and a set of four silver cups and a flagon discovered and confiscated. Earl Roger was smug because he had expected the King's officers to discover the Flemish wall hanging too, but obviously they had not probed hard enough. Not that anyone relaxed their vigilance. One always had to be on guard.

Mahelt was sitting in her chamber putting her hair to rights. While riding the demesne, she had followed the dogs through a thick coppice. A branch had snagged in her wimple, which had been half pulled from her head. She had lost a couple of gold pins in the incident, and returned to Framlingham in a state of dishabille most displeasing to her father-in-law. He was of the opinion that she rode out too much with no purpose but pleasure and that she ought to spend more time involved in domestic duties. She had hastily curtseyed to his scowl, and retired to tidy herself, having dismissed her maid, Edeva, who as usual had been making a fuss. Sometimes Mahelt thought it was like being surrounded by hens, all clucking and fluffing, even if they were trying to be maternal and tuck her under their wings.

She was drawing her comb through the strong, silky strands when the door opened and Hugh walked into the room. He stopped and stared, drinking in her exposed hair with quickening breath. Mahelt leaped to her feet with a joyful cry and ran to him. 'Hugh! Oh, it's so good to have you back!'

He set his arms around her waist and swung her round. He couldn't resist stroking her hair. Its length fascinated him; its sheen, its strength and vibrant colour. No woman wore her hair unbound except in the private chamber, and it was an exclusive privilege of a husband to see it thus. 'Where's Edeva?'

Glancing round, he released her.

Mahelt tossed her head. 'Oh, she was twittering as usual, so I sent her to help your mother.' She sat back down on her bed and resumed her toilet. 'It got into a tangle when I was out riding,' she explained. 'I went into that mature coppice the other side of the mere after the hounds got the scent of a fox, and a low branch snagged my wimple.'

Hugh stooped to pat Tripes who rolled over, inviting a tummy rub. 'You've been keeping busy in my absence then,' he said drily.

She made a face. 'Despite the bare cloth cupboard you left us, there's still been plenty to do. I only escaped for a while this morning because my horse was stale and needed to gallop.'

'And you didn't?'

'A little,' she conceded with a smile. 'The King's officers came, you know.'

'Yes, my father wrote to me.'

'Did they visit your manors?'

He nodded. 'They found nothing. They were thorough, but no match for me.

I'm used to seeing off wolves.' He left the dog and, sitting on the bed, took the comb from her hands and began to groom her hair. 'It's like a dark waterfall,' he said softly.

Mahelt closed her eyes and leaned back into the gentle tug of the comb and the smoothing follow-through of his hands. Then she turned towards him, lifting her face to his in mute invitation. His kiss was the merest touch on her brow and the points of her cheekbones. She held her breath, willing him to do more, wanting the moment to last for ever.

He stroked her hair back from her brow with the edge of his thumb and sought her lips. Mahelt closed her eyes and gave herself up to the delight of being kissed and learning how to kiss in return. It was like holding a butterfly, she thought, and feeling the delicate sweep of its wings in the palm of your hand.

They lay full length on the bed and he continued to caress her hair between kisses that went no further than a gentle initiation. There was no play of tongues, no moist, swift urgency. And yet in stroking the long sweep of her hair he touched the parts of her body that it covered: her waist, her arm, the curve of her breast. His thumb grazed her nipple, once and again. Mahelt almost dissolved at his touch. Her head felt light and her body warm and heavy, drugged with a slow languor that centred in her loins and made her turn towards him. While she was innocent, she was not naive and she wanted more.

Outside the window one of the grooms shouted to a companion, and Elswyth the laundress joined in with a raucous cackle and a quip about a good, stiff wash pole.

Hugh threw back his head and gasped. What had begun as a brief tender moment of welcome to his return was rapidly developing into something else. He had vowed not to consummate the marriage until next spring, but set against that vow was the fact that this girl was his wife; she had the curves of a woman and the way she had been responding to him of late had not been in the manner of a child. Yet he didn't want their first time to be in haste, listening for footsteps with the bawdy talk of the servants floating through the window. It had to be in honour. It was one thing to court her and lead her gradually down the path to joy in the marriage bed - he had that right - another to break a vow.

Summoning his will power, he kissed her again, shortly and playfully this time, and, pushing away from the embrace, stood up. 'Come,' he said.

'Cover your hair before you unravel me completely. I've got something for you - a present from the North.'

Mahelt licked her lips, her expression hazy and disorientated.

'I brought it for you because of your father and his father before him,' he enticed, holding out his hand. 'Don't you want to see?'

Reluctantly, she rose from the bed and came to where he stood near the door. She looped her arms around his neck and hung against him. 'Can't you bring it here?' She laid her head against his chest. Hugh closed his eyes and swallowed. Standing up was no safer than lying down, as once again he found himself pressed hip to hip and his imagination running riot. 'I could,'

he said in a congested voice, 'but it would be difficult.' Determinedly, he set her to one side and picked her cap and wimple off the bed. 'Make haste, or it will be dinner time.'

'You'll have to help me - unless you want me to call for Edeva.'

Hugh gave a breathless chuckle. 'That wouldn't be wise.'

She braided and coiled her hair and together they tucked and pinned it in place, then arranged her wimple to cover all, by which time, although still flushed with desire, they were laughing too, and the mood had lightened.

Once she was decent and could leave her chamber, Hugh grasped her right hand firmly in his and, with a feeling of release and escape, tugged her out of the room and across the ward. A rich meaty smell wafted from the kitchens as they passed and the sound of a ladle banging against the side of a cauldron suggested that dinner was indeed imminent.

In the stables, a small, fat piebald pony occupied one of the stalls. Its forelock covered half of its face and the tip of its full black tail touched the deep straw of its bedding.

Mahelt looked at Hugh askance. 'For me?' she said.

Hugh bit the inside of his mouth at the sight of her baffled expression. 'I was reading a charter the other day from your grandsire's time. It said that it was the Marshal's privilege to have all the pied horses captured during a battle campaign. I know I've not been to war, lest it be in our efforts to avoid paying undue taxes, but I thought since you are of Marshal stock he was an appropriate gift.'

Mahelt clapped her hands and burst out laughing. 'Oh Hugh, you rogue!

He's beautiful!' She took a handful of oats from a grain bin and held them out on the palm of her hand. The pony greedily whiffled them up and before she could fetch more, took a sudden fancy to her newly restored wimple and gripped it firmly between its teeth. Squealing with laughter, Mahelt struggled to free herself. Hugh began to chuckle, and then to laugh harder as he watched the stubborn tug of war. By the time Mahelt finally managed to wrench the fabric out of the pony's grip and stagger free, her torn wimple edge was covered in slobber and half-masticated oats and Hugh was doubled over, helpless with laughter. Clutching her own stomach, Mahelt fell against him, tears pouring down her face. He couldn't resist kissing her again until she was rosy and flushed, and when finally he surfaced to draw breath, it was to see the stable lad easing out of the door, his gaze studiously lowered.

Hugh realised belatedly that the dinner horn must have sounded without them hearing. Hastily he drew back and straightened his tunic, then he helped Mahelt rearrange her wimple, although there was nothing to be done about the mess the pony had made.

Their late and flustered entrance to the hall was witnessed by a room full of spellbound diners. Putting his head up, Hugh walked to the dais as if there was nothing untoward about the moment, and Mahelt walked beside him with the dignity of a queen, although he could sense her quivering and dared not look her way lest he begin laughing again.

On the high table, the knights and retainers exchanged glances and there were some knowing, low-voiced chuckles. The Earl, although somewhat red around the jowls, compressed his lips and said nothing as the couple took their places. Ida gave Mahelt a reproachful look. 'There is straw on the back of your gown,' she whispered fiercely. 'What have you been doing?'

Mahelt flushed as she washed her hands in the finger-bowl. 'Hugh brought me a pony from Yorkshire. We were in the stables.'

'Did you not hear the dinner horn?'

Mahelt shook her head and explained about the pony eating her wimple, showing the stained, torn edge of the garment as proof. Ida looked relieved, but, nevertheless, put a warning hand on Mahelt's wrist. 'We only have your welfare at heart, my dear, and the honour of both our families. A promise made should be held sacred.'

'Yes, Mother,' Mahelt said meekly, although she felt resentful. Why did people have to think the worst? Why couldn't they leave her and Hugh alone?

The main dish was lamb, dressed with sharp mint sauce - a rare treat, for lambs were not usually killed for meat. However, on this occasion, their skins had been required to make parchment and a dozen surplus males had been slaughtered. Hugh and Mahelt exchanged smiling, conspiratorial glances as everyone settled to their meal. He sliced the meat on their shared trencher, brown on the outside, pink and succulent in the middle. Mahelt daintily took a sliver between forefinger and thumb, dipped it in the mint sauce, bit half off and fed Hugh the other half. He responded in kind. They shared a cup, each drinking from the same place. Mahelt knew full well that her father-in-law was watching her and disapproving. Desire and rebellion tingling in her blood, she deliberately fed Hugh another morsel.

Dinner was over. The scent of roast lamb still lingered on the air and everyone was greasily, comfortably full. Ida took Mahelt off for some sewing, and supervision. The Earl eyed their departure with a jaundiced eye and turned his irritation on Hugh, who had remained with him in the hall.

'I know you are newly returned from Yorkshire and that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but you should be more careful in your behaviour,' he grumbled.

'Sire?'

'Do not give me that innocent look. You are becoming too intimate with the girl. We made a promise to her parents that we are honour bound to keep.

No one will say that the Bigods break their word. If you have needs, satisfy them elsewhere. You know what I mean.'

Hugh reddened. 'We have done nothing untoward,' he said stiffly.

His father raised his brows. 'Coming from the stables covered in straw?'

'That wasn't . . .'

'What's more, I came to look for you before dinner and I saw the marks of two bodies on her bed, not one. What does that say of behaviour and intent?'

'She is my wife. I have not touched her beyond kisses.' Hugh's voice strengthened with anger. 'Surely we are allowed a little courtship?'

The Earl unbuckled his belt to give himself stomach room. 'You can do all the courting you want in the hall, or out riding in company, or chaperoned by your mother and her women, but not in the stables and not alone in her chamber - especially not on a bed. I do not want to have this conversation with you again, understood?'

'Perfectly, sire,' Hugh said with a set jaw, feeling like a child being reprimanded for stealing cakes from the kitchen.

Mahelt was sewing in Ida's chamber, darning her torn wimple. Nothing had been said, but Mahelt had registered a general air of reproach and although she still felt wild and restless, she was doing her best to mend broken bridges. When Hugh entered the room, she kept to her sewing and barely looked up, although her cheeks grew hot. He greeted his mother formally and sat for a moment, talking to her in a quiet voice. Whatever he was saying dissipated Ida's tension and she kissed him and patted his cheek.

Peace made, he came to the window-seat where Mahelt was bending over her task.