The Innocent (17 page)

Ranulf rose over the still unconscious girl and gathered her into his arms again. He saw the blood upon their sheets, staining her slim thighs. He smoothed her hair and held her tightly, kissing her brow. She stirred faintly, then opened her eyes. "Are you all right, petite?" he asked her.

She nodded, touching his face in a tender gesture. Was this feeling she felt
love?
Or was it merely lust? How could she tell? How could she know? She couldn't ask Ranulf. He would surely be embarrassed by her girlishness and naiveté. Besides, he certainly did not love her, and any declaration upon her part would only discomfit him. They seemed compatible, and they liked each other. If she gushed of love, he would only be put off. Better she say nothing at all. He was older, sophisticated. Battle-hardened knights such as Ranulf de Glandeville did not feel emotions like love. Best she remain silent, and keep his respect and friendship.

"You were very brave," he told her admiringly.

"You were very kind," she answered him. "When can we do it again, my lord? I must admit, I enjoyed making love with you."

He smiled, surprised, yet delighted. "Ahh, petite, I will need time to recover from your passion, but perhaps before the dawn we may join our bodies again if it would please you."

"Would it please you also?" she demanded.

"Aye, lady. You are a delicious and most satisfying armful. The king has done me a greater kindness than he can ever know," Ranulf said honestly.

"Let us not tell him," Elf said mischievously. Then she let her eyes wander to his groin. "Ah, it is as Mistress Martha said," she noted. "In verity her words have proved truth all around."

"Who is Mistress Martha?"

"The clothier’s wife in Worcester. While we altered the garments the bishop purchased for me, she explained the intricacies of lovemaking and the male body to me. I should not have known otherwise."

Ranulf laughed. "I am relieved you were well instructed, petite."

"Well, the abbess made no attempt to enlighten me, and I could not be certain of my friends and their prattling gossip."

He laughed again. She was so delightfully practical. He kissed her lips lightly. "Let us get some rest now, petite," he said, and he drew the coverlet over them.

When Elf awoke again the fire was low, but there was the faint light of the day just before the dawn beyond the cracks in the shutters. Looking down upon her husband, she was overwhelmed by a sudden and great desire to pleasure and to be pleasured. This was surely lust. She drew the coverlet back, silently examining him. Her hand smoothed lightly over his flat belly. Then boldly she bent down, and began to lick him. He moaned low, stirring. Elf lifted her head as a tiny movement caught her eye. It was his manhood, and it had stirred ever so slightly. Reaching out with brazen fingers, she touched the thick peg of flesh, brushing over it, and then as it began to truly awaken and elongate, she trailed her little fingers up and own its great length.

"Shameless wench," Ranulf murmured, not even opening his eyes. Reaching out, he lifted her up over his belly, then slowly lowered her until her sheath had fully encased his manhood.

"Ohhhhhh, yes!"
Elf breathed. "Oh, yes, my Ranulf!" She clasped him between her thighs strongly.

"Ride me, petite," he instructed her, his voice tight.

Blushing at her own shamelessness, she moved on him, slowly at first, then faster and faster. He pulled her forward so that her small breasts were crushed against his chest. His mouth found hers, and he kissed her hungrily as they loved with fury until the pleasure was so great that it consumed them both as she collapsed atop him, sighing lustily.
"Ahhhhh,
Ranulf! That was wonderful!"

His heart felt as if it would burst with his delight. He laughed aloud. "Nay, Eleanore, you are wonderful! I adore you, petite! There is no other woman like you-and you are indeed every bit a woman now-my sweet wife." His arms wrapped about her.

She was damp with exertions, and so was he. There was something marvelous about lying atop him. She could feel his very strength pulsing beneath her. And he had said he adored her. She had pleased him.
He had pleased her.
Now that she knew what marital relations were all about, she understood the sacrifice she would have made had she taken her final vows. But without Ranulf, she would have known nothing. She would have gone through life innocent of the miraculous and astonishing passions a man and his wife could share. She began to cry.

Immediately he was concerned. He rolled her over into his arms, crooning at her. "Petite, do not weep. What is it? Have I harmed you in any way? Tell me, Eleanore, for you are breaking my heart!"

"I… I…
I am so happy!”
she sobbed. "Then, why are you crying?"

"Because I am happy!
It is all right, Ranulf." She snuggled against him, and patted his cheek.

He was totally confused, but she did not seem in any pain. Was this, then, what men meant when they said that they did not understand women? Kissing the top of her head softly, he thought it must.

T
he walls around the demesne now stood twelve feet in height. Inside of the walls, four feet below their top, ran a platform, three feet in width, and well braced. There the men-at-arms might stand on their patrol, having a good view of the surrounding countryside. A staircase was built at each corner of the walls to give quick access to its parapet in case of attack. Hefty new oaken doors, reinforced with iron, were hung on strong iron hinges. The shallow moat surrounding the walls was dug deeper. An earthen rim surrounded it, and its earthen crossover was replaced with a heavy oak drawbridge.

"It’s fine enough to withstand a siege," Fulk noted.

"Nay," Ranulf said. "The walls enclose too big a space. It’s breachable. Not easily, but breachable by a strong army, though not the Welsh rabble. We need a castle to make Ashlin stronger, but we have not the power, the wealth, or the king’s permission to build one. So, Fulk, we will consider how best to defend the manor house itself in the event of an attack. But first the church, lest my lady say I am not a man of my word."

" 'Tis time to plow the fields, my lord," Fulk pointed out.

"The serfs must give us three days a week of work. Those who give me a fourth day’s labor to rebuild the church will be paid in coin when the job is done," the lord of Ashlin said.

John, the bailiff, who had been walking with them, nodded. "I will tell all of your offer, my lord."

"I will expect one strong man from each household," Ranulf said sternly. "Tell them no permissions for marriages will be given until the church is repaired, and its roof thatched. The lady desires that a priest be called to Ashlin again. It cannot be done until the church is ready to receive the bishop’s man."

The fields were plowed, and the winter crops harvested. Every third field was left fallow in rotation. Of the two remaining fields, one was planted. The other arable field would not be planted until the late summer for harvest the following spring. The ewe sheep had birthed a bountiful number of lambs. They would have wool to sell at Hereford town come the summer fair. There were three new calves. Next to her herbarium Elf recultivated her garden, enlarging it so she would have plenty of medications for her store, with which to dose her people when necessary.

She was happy. Happier, she had to admit, than she had ever been. She had expected to feel a trifle guilty over her happiness, but she could muster no guilt. She liked her life, and she loved her husband, even if he should never know that. Now, she realized, she wanted a child of her love.

"You are too anxious," Ida told her. "Children come when they come, and not before. It is God’s way."

"Have you ever had any bastards, Ranulf?" she asked her husband one night as they lay abed. She trailed mischievous fingers over his belly.

The hazel eyes, closed with the pleasure her fingers wrought and anticipation of the delights to come, flew open.
"What?"
Surely he had not heard her aright.

"Have you ever had any bastards?" she repeated. The wicked little fingers tangled themselves in his thick dark bush.

"Why would you ask me such a question?" he demanded, pulling her hand away from his groin, and gently pinioning her beneath him so he might see her face.

"I want a baby," she said, "and I do not seem to conceive. I just wondered if you had ever had any bastards. Perhaps I am like Isleen and cannot have babes. What a tragedy for Ashlin."

"No offspring have been placed at my feet, Eleanore," he told her, struggling to hold his laughter in check. She was such an outrageous little minx. "I have been careful, however, not to allow my cock to outweigh my common sense. The women I enjoyed were wise enough to know how to prevent conception, for children would have been a burden to them, and they could never be certain of the fathers."

"Do you mean whores?" she asked him.

"What can my little convent-bred wife know of whores?" he responded, fascinated.

"The girls at the convent knew all manner of things, Ranulf. We were not all meant for the church. Bad women are rather intriguing when girls are young. The forbidden always has a certain appeal." She smiled seductively into his face. "Do you want to f-"

"Aye," he interrupted her, "I do, petite." Then a rather wicked light came into his eyes. "Do you still find the forbidden appealing, Eleanore? A lovely and skilled whore I knew long ago taught me a very naughty trick to please both a man and a woman. Are you brave enough? Or is it just the talk that you find pleasing?"

"Is it very wicked?" she asked him. Her gray eyes shown with interest. She contemplated his dare.

"There are some who say it is wicked, and others who say it is not wicked," he answered her. His little nun was becoming quite the delightful sybarite, he thought. The gray eyes locked onto his hazel ones. Taking her legs he drew them up, up, up, until they were well over his muscled shoulders.

Mesmerized Elf watched as her Venus mont was drawn within easy reach of his mouth. She started just slightly as his lips pressed a deep kiss upon her nether lips, and then his thumbs slowly opened her to his gaze. She felt her cheeks flush with the terrible intimacy of his action. Should she forbid him? Unable to tear her eyes away, however, she watched him as his tongue slipped from between his lips and touched her jewel, gently at first, and then with fierce vigor.

"Ohhhhhh, Ranulf!"
The tongue nicked back and forth relendessly over her sentient flesh. She gasped with undisguised pleasure as strong ripples of wonderfully wild sensations began to engulf her. She couldn't watch any longer.
"Ohhhhhh, Ranulf!"
She abandoned herself to the erotic delights his marauding tongue was creating, mewling with her gratification.
"Ohhhhhh, Ranulf! Oh! Oh! Ohhhhhh!"
Her body stiffened, and relaxed as the intensity drained away.

He was hard as iron with her open desire. Lowering her legs just enough, he impaled her with his manhood, and she sighed so gustily that he could not help but laugh. "You are shameless," he said, groaning as he pistoned her writhing body. "Utterly shameless, petite!" By the rood, he could not get enough of her this night! She was hot, and despite the fact she was no longer a virgin, yet tight. He pushed himself as far as he could go, and then pulled her legs up higher to thrust farther. He needed to be deeper within her.

She clung to him. Her senses were completely awhirl. Her fingers clawed his back desperately as she sought the delicious and perfect bliss that the conjoining of their bodies brought her.
I am greedy and selfish,
she thought muzzily.
I think only of my own pleasure.
"I want to pleasure you, too," she gasped as he fiercely used her.

"You are!"
he groaned through gritted teeth. "By Christ’s blood, you are!" Then together they found paradise, shuddering with mutual release; collapsing in happy contentment in each other’s arms.

"You would have been a terrible nun," he finally said when his heart had stopped hammering wildly.

"Nay," she protested. "Had I remained in ignorance of how sweet lovemaking can be, I should have been a very good nun."

Then they both laughed at the familiar badinage with which they always teased each other.

***

Ranulf declared a full day’s holiday on Mary’s Day, which was also Elf’s fifteenth birthday. A Maypole was raised, and the lord and lady danced about it with their people. Tables were set up in the near sunny meadow, and a feast served at the expense of the master and mistress. Barrels of cider and ale were rolled out for drinking. There were footraces and an archery contest with the winners receiving a young cock and two hens. The church had been finished, its walls repaired, its roof newly thatched. Ranulf gave his permission for half-a-dozen marriages to take place as soon as the priest was sent. Two of the brides-to-be were already with child, but there was no shame in it as it but proved their fertility, and their young men were true.

"There be a rider approaching," one of the girls cried out, pointing and excited, for visitors were a rarity at isolated manors like Ashlin.

The sun glinted off the riders sword hilt, Ranulf noted. A knight. Was he alone? A member of an advance party? But no. He would not come alone to scout for a larger, menacing group. Besides, the knight rode slowly, which meant his destination was in sight, and that destination could only be Ashlin. Ranulf stood up, and called to one of the house serfs. "Go inside, and bring me my sword. Hurry!" The man ran off, returning quickly with his lord’s sword and belt, which Ranulf buckled swiftly about him. Then he began to walk forward, distancing himself from the revelers, distinguishing himself so the strange knight would understand that Ranulf was lord of this manor.

Silently, Elf came and stood by her husband’s side. He looked down at her with a small smile.

The rider drew his great warhorse to a halt. "You are the lord of Ashlin manor?" he queried politely.

"I am. Ranulf de Glandeville is my name. How may I be of service to you, Sir Knight?"

The knight dismounted, and held out the hand of friendship to Ranulf, who accepted it. "I am Garrick Taliferro, and I have been sent by Duke Henry to speak with you, my lord."

"Duke Henry?" Ranulf was momentarily puzzled.

"The lord of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Tourraine, and Aquitaine," Sir Garrick said quietly.

"Empress Matilda’s eldest son? I am King Stephen’s man, sir. I have always been, and will be until the king is no more," Ranulf replied.

"Sir Garrick," Elf interrupted. "You will be thirsty with your ride. Come, and let us bring you some wine. Rolph, take the knight’s horse, and see it is stabled properly, fed, and watered."

"This is my wife, the lady Eleanore," Ranulf said, "and she is correct. I have forgotten my manners. Come, sir. The manor is celebrating Mary’s Day as well as my wife’s natal day. Please join us, after which we will talk."

Sir Garrick was seated at the main trestle. A cup of wine was placed in his hand by Cedric himself, who had hurried into the house to bring out a decanter. A plate of food was set before the knight, who ate with gusto, quickly emptying the plate twice, and the goblet three times before he finally pushed himself away from the table, a smile of satisfaction upon his face. "Your hospitality is more than welcome," he told them, "and I thank you."

"You will remain the night with us, of course," Elf said.

"Gladly, lady."

"Will you tell us why you have come from Duke Henry?" Ranulf asked. "As I have said, I am King Stephen’s man."

"Duke Henry knows this, my lord. That is why I have been sent to you, and to many others like you. I am not here to suborn your loyalty to King Stephen. It is that very loyalty which attracts my master, the duke. Being so off the beaten track, you may not be aware of the events of recent months."

"I was wed to my wife last December first by the Bishop of Worcester, and in the king’s presence. Until then I was naught but a knight in the king’s service. We departed that same day to return to Ashlin, and have had no visitors at all since we arrived. What has happened? Is the king well?"

"King Stephen is well, and there is a truce now throughout all of the land. Duke Henry arrived in England in January."

"He crossed from Normandy in wintertime?" Ranulf was astounded. The channel in the best of weather was a rough passage, but in the depth of winter could be a raging tumult of a sea. The duke was either very brave, or a fortunate fool, Ranulf thought to himself.

"During his own lifetime King Stephen wishes to crown his eldest son, Eustace, as England’s king," Sir Garrick began. "As you know this is a custom practiced by the French kings. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, on Pope Adrien’s command, refused. Prince Eustace is frankly as unpleasant a fellow as the Empress Matilda is an unpleasant lady."

"Yes," Ranulf said. "I have heard that he is nothing like either of his gentle parents."

"The church now attempts to mediate a solution to this long and dark crisis that has plagued England these many years. The church has suggested that King Stephen rule for his lifetime, but that when he dies, the crown go to Duke Henry, the empress’s eldest son." The knight paused, and took a swallow of his wine. "The king," he continued, "of course, resists this solution, but in the end he must come to accept it. Eustace is unfit to rule, and his young brother, William, has assured Duke Henry that he is content as Count of Bologne. William has no designs upon the English throne."

"But Duke Henry does," Ranulf said quietly.

"It is his by right, my lord," Sir Garrick replied. "My master wishes to know if you will support him over Prince Eustace once King Stephen is dead. Your manor, small as it may be, sits in a strategic area, near to the Welsh border." Sir Garrick gazed about him. "Are your walls new?"

"Nay," Ranulf responded. "We have simply strengthened them. Come, and I will show you, Sir Garrick."

The two men rose and walked toward the demesne.

Elf signaled to Willa and Ida. "Come," she said, "we must prepare the best bed space for this knight." The three women hurried into the house.

As they lay abed later, Elf asked her husband, "What will you do, Ranulf? Will you support Eustace or Duke Henry?"

"Duke Henry," her husband replied without hesitation.

"Why?"

"For several reasons, petite. Eustace, whom I have known all of his life, is a very unpleasant man lacking completely in his father’s charm or chivalry. I began my career when I was just seven at King Henry’s court. That king died when I was almost thirteen. I was Stephen of Blois’s page, whenever he was in England. He was his uncle, the king's, favorite. I learned to love him, although if the truth be known, he is not the best of kings, petite. He has charm, and he is a brave fighter, but he has not the other skills needed to be successful. Only the fact that the Empress Matilda is so arrogant, over-proud, and nasty a lady-coupled with the fact it suited the more powerful lords and barons to keep the country in chaos without a strong central government-has kept Stephen king in power. When he became king, I was made one of his squires, then knighted when I was sixteen. He was always kind to me, and generous as well. Had I been a boastful man, I should have been resented by those whose sons were of higher rank. My loyalty was always and openly to King Stephen. You understand why, don't you, Elf?"