Bond of Blood (10 page)

"No!" Leah pulled back her hand and clenched her fist.

Edwina was shocked. Leah was always so docile. "Leah! Such vanity! How sinful to be disobedient and say me nay."

"It is not vanity and I
am
obedient. Indeed, Mother, he told me I must wear it and never take it off." A frightened but resolute expression came into the girl's face. "I am not vain and disobedient, Mother, but I will not take off the ring unless he bids me remove it."

"He! He!" Edwina cried furiously, agonized by a sharp pang of fear. "Is there but one man in the world that you say 'he' and everyone must know of whom you speak?"

Leah remained silent, puzzled and a little hurt by her mother's vehemence, but she made no move to take off the ring and a mulish expression marred the normally sweet curve of her lips.

"Well," Edwina gasped, "if you will not answer me, you may set about your work with no more ado. Did you think that just because you were betrothed to a great man you would have no more duties."

"No, Mother. I am ready to do anything you bid me."

"Wait. Where is your cross?"

"I gave it to him. I mean I gave it to Lord Radnor. He wore none. His need was greater than mine."

Where was her docile, confiding daughter? Edwina wondered. In two days she was left with a heavy-eyed stranger. "Are you sure, Leah? The hurt of the body is not so dangerous as that of the soul."

It was as if her mother could read her mind. Leah blushed until tears filled her eyes. "He has done nothing, said nothing, that was not honorable," she whispered.

"But I desire to know what you have done, not what Lord Radnor has done or said."

"II have done nothing." There was a slight emphasis on the word done, however, and the sentence had an unfinished sound.

Plainly, scolding would get her nowhere in this instance. Edwina led Leah to her own room and sat on the bed, pulling her daughter with her. "Leah, I love you. You are my child. I can still remember the pain of the bearing and the pleasure of giving suck. Could I desire your hurt? I have had sorrow enough to have gained some wisdom. I only desire to smooth your path, to make you ready for the sorrow to come so that you may endure it more easily."

The dark blush that had dyed Leah's skin receded as she listened, leaving her face very pale. "You are not used to speak to me this way, Mother."

"But now I fear to lose you. What matter to tear the heart a little sooner, when it will soon be torn from my breast altogether."

Leah could not understand, but her mother's softness drew her to speak of what, presently, troubled her most deeply. "How quickly," she said in a vague, abstracted voice, "how quickly sin steals upon us."

Edwina's lips twisted but Leah was not watching her and she did not see the grimace of pain. "There is one way, my child, in which God and mothers are alike. No matter what their sins, both continue to love their children."

"I hope it is so, most truly I hope so, for I have committed the sin of lust."

"What?" Edwina shrieked, her face becoming as pale as Leah's. "When? With whom? When? I have watched you so close!"

"When he kissed me." Leah began to sob, frightened by her mother's violence. "Before I could think, before I could guard myself. So suddenly it was upon me, I could not hide it."

Edwina gripped Leah's arm and raised her face. "No wonder you have been so strange. You must tell me all now. First, who was the man? One of your father's men? A serf from the fields? Who?"

"It was my lord, Lord Radnor himself."

"Lord Radnor! Nay, then, the matter is not so very bad. Stop trembling, child. It is not well, but with the contract made … He may think ill of you for so yielding yourself, but he should not have—" Then a puzzled look crossed her face. "But when could this have happened?"

"When I took him upstairs that he might bathe."

"That first day? He took you that first day and you said nothing until now? Yet he made contract the next day. Well, it was ill done, but no doubt he is a man of honor. So be it he does not think to void the contract by saying that you are no maid when you are bedded after the marriage—"

"But I am a maid, mother." Leah blushed painfully again when she realized what her mother thought. "Oh, he did not—he—mother, I would not lie to you. I told you he did nothing dishonorable. He only kissed me. It was I whowho lusted after him. Oh, mother," Leah's voice dropped and became tremulous, "I do so desire him. I tremble still. I feel his lips still upon my mouth. I have sinned in my desire and I am punished, but I cannot confess for there is no repentance for the sin in me."

Edwina watched Leah during her simple confession, a mixed look of tenderness and horror on her face. So soft-hearted a child. If she gave the man her love, how bitterly she would be hurt. No, soon enough the poor child's lust would be changed to disgust when she was given what she thought she wanted.

"It is a small sin to desire your own husband. My child, sweet child, what can I do for you? Men are not like women. They desire something and then, when they have it, often and often, they desire it no longer. Leah, it is well to love nothing but God overmuch. All human love brings pain. Parents die, children die or go away, husbands take other women to their beds …" She sat silent, absently stroking Leah's cheek. "Child, listen. It is not well to fling yourself upon a man. Often a man thinks that if a woman's blood is warm for him, it is so for all men. If it is true for you, you must guard yourself very carefully. Once your honor is lost, no man will have you—if your husband does not kill you outright. Do not believe men's blandishments; avoid their pleas. A woman who gives herself, even to her husband, without modesty, with too much willingness, is suspect. Tend him, clothe him, feed him. In these ways you may show your love with honor. But do not hang upon him, for you are more like to bring disgust by such behavior than love."

Knowing her mother spoke the truth, for she could remember Cain's reaction when she responded to his kiss, Leah could only sigh. "I will try," she whispered unhappily.

Lord Radnor's first messenger arrived two weeks later, mud-splattered and fatigued. He gave to Leah a small roll of parchment covered with writing. Radnor's hand was like himself, firm, plain, and strong. His message was simple. He was well; his business moved on apace; he still hoped to be able to keep his promised day of return. The letter contained no word of affection, but some lines at the end had been scraped out. Over them was written a brief thanks for her cross.

Leah read the terse lines twice, then folded the slip and hid it in the bottom of her chest for further perusal later. Although her heart leapt at the thought that he had remembered her, something equally exciting was happening that day. The spring fair was in the town of Eardisley, and Leah was going with her mother to buy stuff for gowns for herself and at least one for Lord Radnor.

Completely happy, Leah ran down into the court where Edwina waited and was flung up into her saddle by a young groom. They had not far to ride before the tents and awnings of the fair appeared. Leah caught her breath. Even at this distance she thought she could smell the odor of spices that came from lands beyond those where the crusaders fought. She would have to watch closely what her mother did; it might well be that next year at this time she would be buying salt and spices for her own huge family of servants and retainers.

Edwina hid a smile tinged with bitterness, for Leah's thoughts could be read easily in her transparent face. Possibly she would be mistress in her own castle. More likely by this time next year, even if Radnor was still alive, he would have tired of her and some other woman would have the thrill of shopping at the fair. Nonetheless Edwina explained carefully to her daughter.

Salt was the first great need of every keep, and salt was purchased in large quantities. Edwina showed Leah how the quality of the salt might be tested. First, it must be white; greyish or brownish salt was contaminated with the earth of the pits in which it was made and the sand would grit in the teeth. Only a hundred pounds or so of this white salt would be purchased, however, for the salting of the food for the high table and the salting of meat for use at the high table. The poorer quality of salt was purchased, at a much lower price and in much greater quantity, for the servants' food and for giving to the serfs. Also, Edwina pointed out, some salt should be taken from each sack, not always from the top of the sack either, and put into a little water. Of the white salt, not a speck should remain and the water should be as clear as it was before the salt was added. Of the brown, the dark matter should sink instantly to the bottom, leaving the water clear in a moment or two. Clouded water meant that the merchant had mixed chalk or some other matter with the salt to make it whiter or to make extra weight.

Pepper was the next need, and Edwina moved to other booths after making arrangements to have the chosen salt delivered. She reminded the merchant before she left that the salt would be tested again at the castle and if the quality was found to be changed, woe betide him. Pepper too might be tested for quality. The little peppercorns should not break between the fingers; when they were broken by a hammer blow, they should crumble to tiny pieces; they should not fold together or stick or form lumps. The black peppercorns should burn the tongue greatly when applied; the grey should be sharply pungent but burn a little less. Leah should be sure, Edwina said, glancing up at her daughter's absorbed face, to make the merchant spread out his wares on a light cloth so that she could see the little black bugs that sometimes infested the pepper. Leah was never to buy what was not perfect for food. If she was sorry for the merchant, she could throw a few coins, but she must not buy bad spices.

Finally they came to the tents of the cloth sellers. The other matters had interested Leah as something for which she would be responsible, but the booths of the cloth sellers she approached with bated breath. All her life she had been dressed in homespuns for every day and Edwina's made-over dresses for special occasions. Now she was to choose all new cloth for gowns for herself, cloth of the very best materials, and she had been set no limit on the amount or the price. She turned from side to side, blushing with pleasure as more and more rolls of material were laid out before her.

"Leah," Edwina said finally, "you jump from one thing to another and accomplish nothing. Come, let us do this right. Look first at the fine linen for your undergarments. When you have chosen that, we may look at what will be needed for your tunics and then the bliauts."

Leah sighed and turned away from a roll of lavender silk so thin that it would float. She chose finally a bolt of linen fine enough to see through and a bolt of wool the same, both in white. Two more bolts of heavier wool and linen for winter undergarments were also selected. Cloth for tunics, the longsleeved, high-necked garment worn under the bliaut in such a way that it showed at the neck, sleeves, and sides, was chosen in pieces just large enough to make one tunic each of different colors.

Edwina shook her head over this piece of extravagance for she wondered what Leah would do when they started to wear. You could not patch different-colored garments from each other. It was true that Lord Radnor promised generously, but Leah should know that men were not so generous after another woman had taken their fancy. Well, Leah had to learn some things the hard way, and after offering her advice, she allowed the girl to make her own choice.

For the bliauts, the sleeveless, wide-skirted, low-necked dress that laced up the side to fit the figure, Leah chose a deep mossy green wool, heavy and warm but soft as a kitten's fur, and similar pieces of cloth in a rich, warm brown, dark mustard, and tawny orange. She looked longingly at a deep red and deep blue, but her mother held them up against her and said that those colors made her look faded. For summer wear, lighter-coloured linens and wools were selected.

While Leah was engaged in this business, her mother had been in conference with the merchant. "Come here, child," she called when Leah, selection completed, stood sighing with repletion. "Do you like this cloth?"

Leah gaped. Never in her whole life had she seen anything so gorgeous. It was a pale silver green brocaded silk, embroidered throughout with silver thread. "Oh!" Leah gasped, perfectly speechless, "oh!"

"For your wedding gown, Leah, and you may use it for great occasions at court also."

Leah touched the cloth with reverent fingers. Such things had only been known in England for a few years. The men who had gone on the First Crusade, a hundred years before, had brought some back and now such cloth together with silks of lesser value and the precious and rare velvet cloth came regularly into the lands to the south—lands whose romantic names were the only things about them that Leah knew—Italy, Sicily, and Spain.

From there the cloth traveled slowly north through Europe until, finally, it reached England. Ordinarily a piece of such value would not be displayed at a country fair; it was meant for the great markets of London, but Edwina had asked for something very special and the merchant felt it worthwhile to take the chance of displaying his better wares.

"Then we will take it at the price of twelve marks." Edwina spoke in a firm voice, for she had bargained for a long time before she had a price she considered reasonable. The merchant had whined and expostulated at great length; actually he was well pleased. In London he would have had to sell to another cloth seller who would have paid far less than Edwina.

"Let us go now, Leah. We were to meet your father at noon and it is nearly that time now."

"Mother, I have not chosen the cloth for Lord Radnor's gown."

"Well, be quick." Edwina had grown colder and colder as the weeks passed to any mention of her future son-in-law, for his name brought a glow to Leah's whole countenance that not even discreetly lowered eyes could hide.

"There is a nice piece of dark blue wool of good quality. Take that. It will make up well and wear well." It was hard to hide the impatience in her voice, and Edwina felt a faint pang of conscience as Leah looked at her, puzzled and hurt.