Fires of Winter (50 page)

He said nothing, so I do not know what was in his mind, but to me the touch of his lips seemed as if he needed to reassure himself that I was real and, perhaps, to thank me—just for being. Whatever Bruno's purpose, that light touch, touch, touch of his mouth on my body brought excitement nonetheless, but it came slowly. I was ready and willing but not half mad as he sometimes made me. He drew the coverlet over me at last and turned away, pulling off his bedrobe. I lay quietly when he went to take off his clothes and waited patiently, watching the fire leap in the hearth. The pleasure in my body was like that of a fire in winter, a beautiful thing, glittering and glowing and giving warmth and contentment.

Bruno caressed me again when he came to bed and said such extravagant things that I would have laughed, knowing how imperfect I was compared to his words, but I dared not. His face and voice were so intent; for that time I was his whole world. I responded with caresses; I stroked his hair and face, his shoulders and arms, and I kissed him gently, but I could not echo his words of love. I
would
not lie to this man who was offering me his soul, and I dared not love him.

I do not know how long we lay entwined, taking and giving comfort. My desire for his body grew slowly more intense, and I could feel Sir Jehan pressing harder against me. The kisses, which had been light and tender, became longer and more passionate. I pulled gently at Bruno's body, and slowly he lifted himself atop me and entered. We hardly moved at first. I only closed my eyes, relishing my easy, warm delight when I was filled, and I think it was the same for Bruno, who seemed in no hurry to spill his seed. So it continued, each slow thrust giving a tiny bit more pleasure until a new joy broke over me in slow rolling waves that made me sigh and sigh again but not cry out.

Bruno's release was very like mine, or so I judged from how he acted, and he raised his head and smiled at me then slid to the side and slept. Usually he was very careful to say a few words of thanks and love after we coupled, but tonight there was no need. We had said everything already with touches and kisses purely gentle. I lay awake for some time—I had done nothing all day but sew—and I thought I would never be jealous of him again. Perhaps he had coupled with a woman now and again in animal need. There was nothing in that, although I would never come to like the idea. What was important was that he would never give another woman a night like this.

Perhaps because I felt less strongly, I teased Bruno in the morning about how he had contented himself over the long time we had been parted. I almost expected him to be angry and tell me his sins of the body were between him and God. Instead he looked as if I had given him a chest full of gold and jewels. He seized me and kissed me and laughed long and loud. Then he frowned and tried to look stern, only his eyes were still bright with laughter, and said a good wife did not ask such questions. But he burst out into chuckles again before he finished and asked if I wished to see the dingy drabs that followed the army. I would not need to ask again once I saw them; such women, he assured me, were more likely to inspire chastity than lechery.

“There are better women than that as spoils of war,” I remarked, still teasing and remembering what Donald had told me.

But Bruno's laughter stopped abruptly, and he seized me by the shoulders. “Never! Never in my life have I taken any woman as a prize of war. I could not, Melusine. I would see you and Audris. Can you think I would use threats or force—” He stopped and the pain in his face was terrible. “Do you still hate me for our wedding night, Melusine?”

“No, no!” I cried, throwing my arms around him and clinging to him. “I did not mean to hurt you, Bruno. I had forgotten that, truly forgotten it, or I would not have been able to tease you. I was only jesting. I—I am a little jealous.”

Truly repentant, I admitted openly what I would have denied to my last breath, despite having exposed myself by my questions. But my purpose was accomplished. Although Bruno undid my arms from his neck and held me away from him so he could see my face, the tension in his body had eased, and when he saw I was blushing, he began to smile again.

“You need not be,” he said. “Having the mother I did, I was never much of one for women—”

“Not much of one for women!” I echoed indignantly. “What am I, a frog? You do not give
me
much rest.”

“Do you desire it?” he asked, pulling me close again. “You never say no.”

I pushed him away with all my strength. “What I desire,” I snapped, “is the last word, just once!”

He took my hands in his, smiling again. “I beg your pardon. That was neither a polite nor a clever remark—I spoke before I thought because your gentle compliance makes me so happy.” Since my compliance was more often violently enthusiastic than gentle, I felt a strong urge to pull his hair and my hands jerked in his grasp, but he did not release me and went on blandly, “But on this subject you shall have the last word. I can do without women, and if you want my word on it, I will give it.”

I could feel myself blush again, and Bruno laughed aloud, let go of me, and cast up his hands in a signal I had seen men use to call a halt in fighting exercise.

“Forgive me!” he exclaimed. “I do not know how I came to make two such stupid remarks in succession. Of course you need not ask. Even if you do
not
desire that I be faithful, I swear I will take no other woman while you live, Melusine—not whore nor serf nor fine lady.”

Although Donald had taught me what men's oaths are worth on such a subject, I felt a definite satisfaction. Bruno was my husband, not a man promising the moon to win a mistress, and he had no need to pacify me except for his own desire to please me. However, all I said was, “With such a beginning, I know what that oath is worth.”

He caught my chin in his hand and held my eyes. “I do not give any oath lightly, Melusine, even if I smile when speaking it. I smiled because you had the deed without need of oath. You should know I have not touched any woman since I first lay with you.”

He embraced me again, but I laughed and pushed him away. “We must go. I did not tell the queen or Edna that I was leaving, and I wonder where Fechin, Cormi, and Merwyn slept last night.

“They will have found a place easily enough in the stables or even in the hall.” Bruno's lips twisted. “This court is not likely to be overattended. But you are right, we must go. I am very late.”

There was a note of indifference in Bruno's voice that both pleased me and made me uneasy. I thought perhaps his duty was not so precious or pleasing to him as it had been, and that would make me more important to him. Yet the happiness that idea brought was not unalloyed. I found the notion that Bruno would be lax in keeping his oath to the king disturbing. What had been a character of solid rock was no longer a place to rest with utter trust.

I found over the next weeks that I was right in half and wrong in half about Bruno's duty. His character had lost none of its solidity. The pleasure was indeed gone from his duty, but it was as precious as ever. He had given his oath to the king, and that oath was adamant. Until Stephen released him, he would serve. But he
was
different. In the past he had attended eagerly to the king's plans and hopes and as eagerly discussed them with me, most particularly as they applied to our hopes of obtaining Ulle. Now he would not talk of anything more serious than my beauty, the latest gossip—and Bruno had never cared for gossip—and what was to be found in the shops in London.

I was hurt, at first, thinking he was keeping secrets from me, but I soon realized that Bruno was not listening to the king and his advisors as he used to do. He said bitterly that all they did was plan for war, and none of the plans was new to him. I saw that Bruno was tired, not in his body but within himself, the way Papa had been tired after Mama died. I did not understand over what Bruno grieved. He would not talk about it, and I wondered if he was as bitter as the queen about Stephen's rejection of the peace treaty. If that was what had made him withdraw his affection from the king, he was more loyal than Maud, for he said no word against his master.

What I did understand, even if the cause was unclear, was that Bruno had to have a time of peace in which he did not need to strive for anything, not even for so dearly desired a goal as Ulle. Besides, from other men's talk I learned that the war might go on for a very long time; if so, our hope of settling in Ulle would be far in the future, and tired as Bruno was, that thought must be painful to him. It was reasonable for him to avoid any talk of Ulle.

I did not press the subject, since the queen had told me we would remain in London through January. I was the center of Bruno's world; I was very happy, and I wanted him to be happy. I felt there would be chances toward the end of our time together to show Bruno the letter I had had from Sir Gerald with the accounts of the harvest and quarterly income from the fisheries. The accounting was some months out of date, but I did not blame Sir Gerald for that. He had first had to find a priest who could write and would not betray him, and then the poor messenger had twice arrived in towns the queen had just left.

I was eager to give Bruno Sir Gerald's news because the accounts were cheering; the harvest had been good and the fish were bringing higher prices than ever because of the war. The hidden strongbox was filling with silver, and when we came to Ulle, there would be money to buy sheep and pigs, even cattle, to replace any depredations Sir Giles made. And the war had not touched Ulle; it might be tearing apart most of the realm, but the deep valleys of Cumbria were quiet. I should have made him listen; it would have been something good to think about, something to cling to during the nightmare that followed.

One would think that, at twenty-four years of age and bearing on my heart the scars I bear, I would not have the simple expectation of a child that the war everyone talked of could not touch me. I had been “promised” that Bruno would be with me until the end of January, and I expected that “promise” to be kept—as if the queen's remark could order fate. I had no suspicion that our time of peace and play was over when Bruno sent a message that his duty would keep him late and I should go to our lodging with our men's escort. Even when he came and flung himself on me with such violence that our coupling would have been rape, except that his urgency roused me quickly to desire, I only laughed, glad of his need of me. But when he began to shake after his release and I felt his tears wetting my shoulder, my pretty bubble burst.

At first, I was more shocked than frightened, and I held him and soothed him. I remember saying that though the whole world burned, we had each other and would find a corner in which to live in peace. I could not well make out his answer because his voice was thick and he would not raise his head; it was as if he were ashamed. He said something about pitch spreading from the guilty to smear those who stood watching. I supposed he was speaking of something the king had done, but I did not care and only told him that there was no way one man could change the world—unless he thought he was Christ in his second coming. He was too sick, with disgust I think, to smile, but the reminder that he should not be so proud and think the fate of the world rested on his doings finally calmed him. He sighed and let me see his face and told me he was sorry he had been so rough. A little later he loved me again with his usual tenderness, and then he slept. I did too, not knowing what was to come.

Before dawn Bruno woke me. He held me and kissed me tenderly and said he must go and he did not know when he would come back, so perhaps I had better give up the lodging. That was when I realized he was all in mail. I was so stunned that I could not even weep—thank God for that. My poor Bruno had enough to bear; he did not need the memory of a weeping wife. And I thank God too that out of some inner urge, I called out, “Take all three men, Bruno. I do not need a private messenger, and I think Fechin is lonely without his friends.”

It was Fechin who came back to me, riding Barbe, though he could scarcely sit the horse, and leading Merwyn's mount with Merwyn tied to the saddle. Cormi was dead.

In times of utter and complete disaster, one thanks God for small mercies. When I heard that Bruno was alive and not sorely hurt, I thought it a wonderful thing that he was a prisoner rather than dead. Thus it was I who brought to the queen the news that instead of taking Lincoln, the king had been surrounded by Gloucester's army and defeated. It was not until Fechin stood before her that I thought she might not believe him and call him a liar or even punish me, but Fechin began the tale at the right end by saying that the king was alive and not much hurt before he said that Stephen had been taken prisoner.

I had not waited to hear the whole story. Once I had been assured of Bruno's safety, I stayed only to call a servant to see that Merwyn was put in the hands of a healer before I brought Fechin to the queen. Her shock was less than mine—when I saw Barbe with Fechin, I thought Bruno was dead. Once Maud learned that Fechin had actually seen Stephen safe after the battle, riding a horse beside Robert of Gloucester though hemmed in on all sides by rebels, she had every detail out of him even though I had to translate most of what he said; Maud did not understand soldiers' patois. Some events Fechin had seen himself and others Merwyn had told him, for Fechin's right arm had been broken early in the battle, and he had withdrawn to have it set and then stayed with the horses. When he saw the king could not win, he had stolen Gloucester's colors from dead men for Merwyn and himself, and thus escaped.

“I didn' go before I saw I couldn' get Sir Bruno free, m'lady,” he said, turning to me in the midst of his explanation to the queen. “He be ridin' right behind the king. I made like I was Gloucester's man and followed, right in the city, but they be goin' on to the keep.”