The Marsh King's Daughter (40 page)

Robert sat over her, a pitcher in his hand, and she and the bedclothes were drenched. 'I'm sorry, sweetheart; it was all I could think to do.' Reaching out, he gently removed her dripping wimple and wiped water from her face on the palm of his hand.

Miriel stared at him, feeling like a small bird caught in the gaze of a hawk. He knew, dear God, he knew, and there was no point in denial. She had a sudden urge to laugh. The jest had been on her when she promised

Nicholas that she was barren, that he need not fear for her safety.

'Are you going to disown me?'

'It has crossed my mind.' He dragged off the wet bedclothes and cast them on the floor. 'But then I wondered why I should cut off my nose to spite my face. Whatever you have done, you are still my wife.'

'Oh Jesu Christ,' Miriel muttered and put her head in her hands, hiding her face, desperately seeking the dark path to nothing. It would be better if he lost his temper, bellowed at her like an enraged bull, struck her. This reasoned weariness was far more lacerating.

'Do you love him?'

'Yes,' she said through the cage of her fingers. 'To my cost. But whatever was between us is finished now.'

'It is not,' Robert answered in a soft voice, 'because you are carrying his seed.'

'I thought I was barren,' she repeated helplessly, knowing that it was no excuse. Like a child stealing sweetmeats, she had trusted not to be caught. And now she was, in a vicious trap of her own making. 'If I could undo the past, I would.'

He grabbed her wrists in one strong grip and pulled them down, leaving her naked to his gaze. 'And marry him instead of me? Look at me, Miriel. Stop hiding and at least have the honesty to meet me face to face.' And beyond the soft tone, the reasoning voice, she saw the anger, the hurt, the raw and naked jealousy that had been her expectation. 'And marry him instead of me?' he repeated.

'No, and stop my mother from falling for the silver tongue of a travelling minstrel,' Miriel cried. 'My grandfather used to say that I was like her. I didn't believe him then, but now I know I am, and I wish I'd never been born.' Robert's grip meant that she could neither hide herself again nor tear away, but still she tried.

His grip tightened. 'How long has this been going on beneath my nose? How long have I been wearing the horns of a cuckold?' he demanded. 'You knew him long before I brought him home to dine and you feigned not to know each other. Were you lovers then?'

Miriel gasped as he squeezed her flesh against bone. 'No, I swear we were not! On my soul we have lain together on no more than two occasions. I did not know you were using his ships; indeed, I did not even know that he had them until you brought him home that evening.'

'But you knew him in St Catherine's. The Abbess herself told me that you did.'

'Yes, as a patient in the infirmary. I saved his life, and in payment he brought me to Nottingham and gave me silver to begin a new life. We parted company, and I did not see him again until the night you brought him home. It's true, I swear it is true!'

Robert glared at her, his teeth making small grinding sounds behind his lips.

'You're hurting me.'

'Do I not have the right? What man would gainsay me if I took a stick to your faithless hide?'

Miriel had a sickening vision of her stepfather standing over her, his face crimson with rage, working himself up to the point where he was ready to strike. Last time that had happened, she had fought back with a fury and indignation as great as the man's and almost burned the house down around their ears. Now she had neither the vitality nor the strength to make a battle of the moment. If Robert chose to beat her, there was little she could do to prevent him. 'I doubt that any man would gainsay you,' she retorted. 'Strike me if you must, but it will not change anything.'

Robert went white. 'I ought to,' he muttered, but released his crushing grip and turned to pace across the room, his hands raking his thick hair. 'All the trust I had in you, all the faith and affection, you have betrayed it for a common lust.'

The way he said the words stabbed like a dagger because they were the truth and at the same time so far from the truth. 'No, it wasn't like that!'

'He filled your belly and turned straight away to another woman. If that is not common lust, I do not know what is,' Robert continued relentlessly. 'Nor if the truth is known do I really care except that you gave yourself to him when your love and duty was to me.'

He stopped pacing and looked blankly at the carved oak cupboard standing against the wall. With a sudden oath, he swung his fist and sent the salver and flagon upon it crashing to the floor and kicked the cupboard so hard that he shattered part of the fretwork on the door.

Miriel winced at the violence, fully aware that it could have been directed against her. Winced because it was her fault and she did not know how to set matters right. 'Do you want me to leave?'

Chest heaving, eyes aglitter, Robert turned to look at her. 'No,' he said huskily. 'The matter goes not beyond this door. If you went, then all of Lincoln would know that you have given me a cuckold's horns. Why should I suffer in public for your faithlessness?'

Miriel bowed her head and bit her lip. It had been a foolish thing to say. Where would she go? To Nicholas and his red-haired leman? Back to St Catherine's? As her husband, Robert had the right to all her property, and likely he would claim it if she went. All she would have were the hidden bags of silver from her hoard and the danger of Empress Mathilda's crown. Besides, sick and wretched as she was now, how would she care for herself or manage the birth of her child amongst strangers?

Robert folded his arms. 'We will patch together what we have left. Since I cannot father a child, I will acknowledge your bastard as my heir. At least we can salvage something from this ill deed of yours.'

'I wish you had never found out,' she said miserably, 'for your sake, not mine.'

Robert grunted. 'I wish it too, because although I can forgive you the world, trust is a different business. No more.' He raised a forefinger when she tried to speak. 'I will hear no more on the matter. It is finished. I'll summon Elfwen to change these wet sheets, and when you have rested, we will go hand in hand and announce to the world our joyful tidings.' And with a brisk nod to seal his decision, he left the room.

Miriel slumped on the bed and closed her eyes. They were dry and burning. Somewhere within her was an ocean of grief and terror, but there was a huge stone blocking its release. If she turned her head she would see the daylight through the open shutters, beckoning her to the window. She was still slim enough to fit into the aperture, no bulge of child yet to prevent her graceful progress. How easy it would be to leap out like a bird taking flight. Easy and stupid. The ground was not far enough distant to guarantee instant death. And if she killed herself, then she would be doubly damned for killing the child inside her too. Nicholas's child. She placed her hand on her belly in wondering fear. Lulled into complacence by the belief that she was barren, the thought of having a child had been a distant dream, sometimes wistful, frequently a nightmare. The ordeal of the bearing terrified her, and if she survived that, how would she deal with a screaming infant? In girlhood she had always fled from other women's babies, not wanting to know. Now she did not have a choice. Like her mother before, she was trapped.

Downstairs, Robert spoke briefly to Elfwen, then went into the yard to look at the sun glittering on the havoc wrought by last night's storm, the drunken angle of the wattle fences, the fallen fruit in the orchard, the torn leaves on the vines.

He had lied to Miriel in the bedchamber. It wasn't finished, but the decision he had deferred to the storm was made.

Magdalene did not need a physician with a flask of urine to predict her own condition; with the life she had led, she was all too familiar with the signs. Despite prayers and precautions, it had been bound to happen. Unsure how Nicholas would react to the news, she kept it to herself until his keen sailor's eye and sensitive hands bared her secret during an afternoon's lovemaking in the loft of The Ship.

The shutters were open, admitting a mellow day, as rich and gold as fine mead - one of autumn's gifts before the winter darkness closed in. Lazing in the aftermath of pleasure, Nicholas caressed her body. Through half-closed lids, Magdalene watched his fingers track across her skin. Their brown, salt-scarred strength was tempered by the sensitivity of touch, by the masculine grace of tendon and sinew and wiry, sun-bleached hair on wrist and knuckle. Words of love swelled in her throat, but she held them back, not wanting to show him a cage lest he took flight like a wild sea-bird.

He traced the outline of her breasts, the delicate marbling of blue veins, the swollen outer curve and crown of dark-red nipple. Magdalene gave a sensuous little shiver and turned towards him, answering his touch with her own. He caressed the outline of her body, each ridge of rib, the curve of hip, and long thigh. Back up to her breasts, then slowly, slowly down. Quivering, Magdalene parted her thighs, but before his fingers found the magic place, he stopped. His palm quested gently over the mound of her belly and then remained there, warm and heavy. No longer pleasuresated, his gaze was sharp and clear on hers.

'I hope you were going to tell me,' he said. 'And do not say tell me what or claim that you have been overeating. I am not a fool.'

A jolt of fear ran through Magdalene at being found out, but she was relieved too. The thought of broaching the matter had been weighing on her mind like a lead ingot. Now she would discover whether her fears were proven or groundless. 'I was going to do so, but I did not know how,' she said, and laid her hand over his on the full, creamy flesh of her belly.

'How does any woman tell her man? Surely it is a simple matter.'

Magdalene grimaced. In some ways she was a deal more experienced than he. Telling a man that you were going to bear his child was rarely a simple matter at all. She could remember her own parents' dismay at the thought of another mouth to feed, the worry, the arguments. There was the overwhelming pressure of expectation on the lady of the manor to be a good brood mare and produce several healthy sons, or the disgrace of the merchant's daughter who quickened out of wedlock. And there was the reformed whore who found herself at the mercy of love.

'But that is what I did not know,' she said. 'Are you mine? I could not bear you to turn away from me. I have bedded with other men in the past. What if you thought I was faithless now?'

'You insult my judgement and you insult yourself,' he said with narrowed eyes.

'No.' Magdalene shook her head and met his indignation squarely. 'If you had lived as I have done, you would know that my words are spoken out of fear, not insult. You would not be the first man to walk away from such news.'

He leaned over and kissed her hard on the lips. 'Not me,' he said. 'Christ, I have no living family. Why should I want to leave the new harbour I've found?'

Magdalene could think of several reasons, but kept them to herself and kissed him back.

For a moment he responded with enthusiasm, but then, despite his burgeoning erection, rolled away and frowned at the rafters.

'What's wrong?' Magdalene bit her lip.

He sat up and reached for his clothes, indicating that she should do the same.

'It seems to me,' he said, 'that the mother of my child should have my name too. Robe yourself as befitting a respectable matron, and we'll go and find a priest. I'll ask Martin and his wife to be witnesses.'

Magdalene gazed at him, her jaw slack. 'You want me to marry you?'

He struggled into his shirt and, emerging tousle-haired, returned her look. 'If you want to,' he said.

'If I want to!' It was too good to be true. With trembling hands she began to dress, feverish lest it all be a dream and she should suddenly awaken. She was shaking so much that she could not tie the lacing, nor see to attempt it, for her eyes were blinded by tears.

'Here,' Nicholas said gently, and performed the task for her, his fingers deft and his expression tender. He brushed his thumb across her wet face.

Magdalene threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tear-salt kiss. 'I have never wanted anything so much in my life,' she sniffed.

It was a freezing December day, with sleet in a wind that had a bite like a vicious dog. In the weaving sheds, the workers wore several layers of clothing and thick woollen hose. Charcoal braziers gave out a degree of localised heat, but did not reach the corners or banish the draughts that puffed through the shutters like the breath of ghosts.