Simon's Lady (14 page)

“Ah!” was all Beresford said.

Did she detect a smirk on his face? Did he think her so defenseless? Was he indeed so devoid of jealousy? For all he knew, Valmey
could
be a rival. Well, she was not going to stand idle under a perfectly charming arbor in the soft evening twilight laced with the cooing sounds of nesting birds. Oh, no. She was not going to wait for Beresford to whisper sweet nothings into her ear and make tender advances! He was as likely to insult her with more inappropriate questions.

“Shall we….?” she said coolly, making obvious her desire to leave the pretty spot.

“Any suggestions about where to go?” he asked.

She looked at him. His brows were raised, his gray eyes were lit and he was smiling, a little lopsidedly. She felt perversely angry at his lighthearted calm—or was it rather lighthearted expectation? No matter, for she was blind to the fact that he had—finally—propositioned her. She replied, with a studied lack of emotion, “To the hall, if you please. I do not wish to remain in the gardens.”

The seal was set on her irritation when Beresford shrugged and said, “Fine with me. I didn’t want to come here in the first place.”

****

“Your hair, my dear! It is finally dry, but your braid has escaped its pins again! How will we ever set the circlet straight so that it stays in place?”

“Don’t move. Now, don’t. Ah, see now! You’ve upset my stitch on your hem. I’ll have to begin again. Don’t move. Don’t move, I say!”

“Your other slipper! Now where can the little squirrel have gone? Did it scamper off?”

“If you don’t lift your arms, I cannot tie your bliaut. The gold becomes you, I think, but I am not partial to the red kirtle. Ah, well. You are a beautiful bride, by anyone’s measure!”

“Sir Simon will swoon!”

“Before or after he comes to his point of points?”

“From what I hear of him, he will not swoon before! He’s a man who sees his duties through!”

“Stop laughing, you silly ducks! The hem again, my dear! There, now. You are standing still for once! ’Tis a pity you did not work as diligently these past few days on your own gown as you did on Beresford’s tunic!”

All the fussing produced the paradoxical result of calming Gwyneth’s nerves. The pinching, the poking, the hemming, the braiding contrived to impress upon her the reality of the event. To be sure, being sold to some man not of her choosing was reality enough for her. What was not real was her purely feminine pique of the evening before. Upon rising this morning, she had decided that it must have been something she ate. She had no reason to fear Beresford. Or, at least, she had no reason to believe that she would not be able to face down her fear of him, just as she had always faced down her fear of Canute.

Then she saw him. By the time her dressing was completed, the sun had climbed high enough in the sky for the bride’s party to descend from Adela’s solar. They were to meet the groom’s party in the yard before the White Tower, so that everyone could proceed together to the Chapel of Saint Peter.

She hardly recognized him at first, so noble did he look and worthy of his rank. His curls were tamed, and his hair was neatly cut to just above his shoulders. Shapely now, his locks no longer fought with his irregular features but framed them, emphasizing their strength, the cut of his jaw and the thick column of his neck. He was neatly, even resplendently dressed in a tunic the deep blue of the summer sky, emblazoned with the Beresford shield, a per chevron field of argent and azure surmounted by a castle with two towers in sable. What drew Gwyneth’s eyes was the cut of his shoulders from which the tunic fell, side slit to the waist, where it was caught by a wide leather belt, from which hung his sword.

She looked away quickly, not wishing to spoil her calm mood with any unsettling thoughts.

It was just as well. If she had seen his expression when his eyes fell on her, she might have felt a good deal less calm, for he gave her a brief but unmistakable look of desire and displeasure.

In truth, Beresford was in no good mood. He did not like all the fuss and he could not remember any of it from his wedding to Roesia, thirteen years before. He had disliked having the barber attend to him during his bath this morning, hated for someone else to shave him and did not think he needed his hair cut so urgently. Of course, he could hardly refuse the barber’s services, once he was there. He spared himself the indignity of having the man open his mouth to check for rotten teeth by informing him, none too politely, that his teeth were all there and in good condition. It was just as well that Beresford did not know it was Gwyneth who had ordered the barber to his chamber.

He guessed, however, that she had attended to his tunic, for he knew that she had sent castle couriers to his house to retrieve a trunk of his old clothing. When the tunic had been presented to him at his bath this morning, he recognized it as one he had put away years ago, it being too ceremonial for his taste. Once having donned it this morning, he decided he liked the feel and weight of the fabric and thought it perfect now for daily exercise. He was amazed at the excellence of its condition. He suspected that Gwyneth had refurbished it a little, but completely underestimated its original state of disrepair. His chausses and shoes, however, being new, were not at all comfortable, and his demand for his old ones had yielded nothing but baffled looks from his attendants. Nor could they tell him where these new items had come from.

He had had more pairs of hands touching him this morning than in any battle he had ever fought, and as if that was not enough, there was still the wedding to endure. Even as a mere spectator, he was bored unbearably by these tedious ceremonies. As one of the main participants, he was bound to be irritated, as well.

Then he saw her. Each time that he saw her was like seeing her for the first time. Each time was associated with a strange and wonderful pain. Seeing her this morning in the yard before the White Tower, he could not have said whether her dress was blue or red or green or a jester’s motley. He knew only that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. The pain was there this time, too, and it was physical. His eyes hurt from the way she seemed to shimmer in the sunshine.

The men came forward to meet the women. Gwyneth’s hand was placed in Beresford’s. She glanced up at him cautiously, and was satisfied that, for once, he did not discredit her. He looked down at her and tried to shake off his uncertainty about the nature of possession, for she was soon to belong to him, though not in the way that his sword or his horse belonged to him. He had a vague, unsettling sense that she would belong to him more in the remote and mysterious way that the stars belonged to the sky. He felt at a loss that he would never truly possess her.

The wedding party moved through the inner ward, which was alive with ordinary activity, this day being a usual workday. Pitched among the wooden structures of the ward were tents and awnings, gaily painted and surrounded by the numerous servants of the court, the pie makers, fish mongers and others from the city who had come in the hope of obtaining an order for their wares. These trades people spared a glance and then a second glance for the beautiful bride; they called out proper encouragement for the groom. The wedding party passed not far from the kitchens, which were busy with the wedding-feast preparations. The yard outside was gamey with poultry and pigs still awaiting the attention of the butcher and the cook.

The party arrived at the chapel, solid and square towered, and halted before the doors set under the heavy stone porch. Performed there was the most important part of the marriage service. For all to hear and see, Beresford named the dower he bestowed on Gwyneth and presented her with a ring and a gift of silver coins, his pledge to her, his
wedd.
She accepted these and stated what she would give him in return, and after the exchange of vows, the party moved inside for the celebration of the nuptial mass.

The moment he entered the cool interior of the chapel, Beresford suddenly felt the weight of the stones and the tradition and the ceremony press down on him and fasten around him like bonds. He would have vastly preferred to be outside in the sunshine or even in the rain, if it came to that. In the fresh air, in any case, where a man could breathe.

He led Gwyneth to the altar, past the tombs with their recumbent effigies, past the statues of Saint Etheldreda and the Virgin Queen, past the stone fonts. They stopped before the altar, where stood the earthly interpreter of the Heavenly Father. The light of stained glass was behind him, falling forward, Beresford felt the bonds tighten, as if his shield was cinched too tightly across his chest and shoulder. He took a deep breath and worked his shoulder muscles, but could not loosen the strap that was constraining him.

The stained glass lent the woman at his side an aura of mystery. It divided her into cold, brightly colored fires. One cheek moved in and out of a pool of grape violet as she stood and kneeled, then stood again. Her brow flowered green and gold. Rose red stained her pale neck and chin and mouth. Berry red stained her kirtle, deepening its crimson. Eyelids were purple shadowed. The gold of her bliaut glittered with turreted purple ridges. Dust danced in a shadowy halo around her shining head, like black motes in gold. He felt himself yearning, but he did not know for what.

The ceremony continued, wafers, wine, and words spoken. She turned her head through the rainbow. She lifted her lips, rose red, now berry red, to accept his kiss.

When he put his lips to hers, the alien sensations fled. He touched not cold, colored glass, but warm flesh. The strap that had been constraining him fell away, like old twine yielding to light pressure. He knew exactly the way he would possess her.

The kiss would ultimately unknit the fabric of Gwyneth’s calm, but so slowly that she was hardly aware of it until it was too late in the day to make whole again her self -possession.

When he gave her the kiss she had wanted the evening before, but with none of a lover’s reassurance, she was still too absorbed in performing her part of the public ritual to notice its effect on her. When their lips parted, they knelt for the last time, bowed their heads and had a cloth stretched over them, thereby ending the ceremony.

They rose together and left the chapel, the wedding party in their wake. Outside in the yard they accepted congratulations for a good length of time, during which it seemed to Gwyneth that Beresford was abrupt to the point of rudeness to one and all. If anything, his customary lack of sociability bolstered her calm rather than unsettled it, for it kept her properly primed and on her toes to the point that she was unaware of any other effect he was having on her.

Nor did she notice any change in her temper or her feelings toward him once they returned to the great hall, where fresh rushes had been strewn and garlands hung for the occasion. The atmosphere in the hall was clearly marked by festivity. The pages were falling over one another in their busyness, the tumblers and acrobats were warming up in the corners, the minstrels were already strolling, the tables were spread with food and groaning under the quantity of dishes and the air was thick and sweet with the scents of savory fare. They took their places on the raised dais.

When she made a conversational remark to him about the decorations, she received a blank look. Then he shrugged and said something to the effect that it was not so bad being in the hall on a bright day such as this with the sun streaming in through the unshuttered windows. He went on to imply, though, that regardless of the weather, he vastly preferred to be out-of-doors. Since he made no effort to hide his dislike for the hall, even on this, his wedding day, she tallied his comment as his first insult of their wedded life. Because they had been married nearly an hour, she wondered, with perversely satisfying irony, what had taken him so long.

Nor did she notice any change in him once the feasting had begun. She had already determined that Beresford liked his food plain, and feast or no, today was no exception. She noted that he partook liberally of the roasted haunch of oxen and the boar’s head in aspic and the venison in broth. However, he shunned the more delicately prepared swans, capons and peacocks, as well as the fowl that had been plucked, farced and replumed for display; and he regarded as apparently inedible the doves and larks in pastry shells latticed with braided dough and glazed. His taste for sweets was similarly austere. He passed over the frumenty, marzipan, compotes, honey pastries, candied almonds, jellies and custards, but indulged heartily in the season’s first strawberries, without the cream. The amount of wine he consumed was moderate.

During the feast, no occasion for private talk between them presented itself—nor would she have expected it or even sought it. Woven throughout the various toasts, the conversation ran merrily at the head table, which was crowded at all times with a changing array of people, and where many topics and jests were kept aloft, like so many jugglers’ balls.

At last the crowds around the head table thinned, the quantities of food diminished and a lull came over the hall. Gwyneth was speaking quietly with Felicia Warenne. At Felicia’s significant nod, Gwyneth turned to Beresford. He was conversing idly with Lancaster, the ladies’ man who had taken to hanging about the bridal couple, and with Roger Warenne.

The minstrels strummed the opening phrases of a chaconne. Several times. Gwyneth waited patiently, and then was miffed when she realized that Beresford, the dolt, was oblivious to the groom’s duty. It was left to Adela to rise from her chair and, before the eyes of everyone in the hall, to drop a whispered word into Bsresford’s ear.

At this prompting from Adela, Beresford got up and extended his hand to Gwyneth, who accepted it. The expression on his face when he looked down at her told her everything she needed to know about her husband’s opinion of dancing with his wife.

As they walked out to the center of the hall, Gwyneth said to him, very sweetly, “You may not wish to dance, my lord, but others who do enjoy it cannot begin until we have opened the activity. So please console yourself with the knowledge that you are performing a public service.”