The Warrior's Wife Read online

  “I think she hasn’t helped yet," Lady Amicia called out, beckoning Kate out of her corner with a wave of her hand. “Come and aid us in this, my lady.”

  Kate’s heart jolted as everyone in the room, even Emma, turned to look at her. Between her own foul memories and the strangeness of these women, she couldn’t do it. “Nay, not I. Choose another," she protested.

  “Are you so shy, then, Lady de Fraisney?" Lady Haydon laughed. “Too bad, for I think me it won’t be long before we’re undressing you. I’ve been watching your sire this night, interviewing man after man. At this rate, he’ll have you betrothed before we celebrate the last day of my Emma’s event."

  Kate’s heart twisted. So everyone knew her father couldn’t wait to be rid of her for the second time. She’d been a widow for barely a month and home even less and her father acted as if she were a cheese on the verge of going bad and he a cheesemonger eager to foist her onto the first gullible customer through his door. Lord, but the only time her sire spoke to her was to tell her to open her mouth so that a potential husband could see she still had all her teeth.

  Someone pounded on the bedchamber’s closed door. Kate started as the sound thundered into the room. “Let us in," shouted the men from the solar that lay outside the chamber.

  “Oh, hold onto your cocks," the countess shouted back. “We’re not ready for you yet." The old noblewoman squinted nearsightedly at Kate. “Hie now. Come out of there, child, and do your duty."

  Kate blanched at the word and the painful memories it woke. Lady Amicia shot her fellow widow a concerned look, then caught the arm of a small, plump woman.

  “Leave her be, my lady, and let’s have Lady FitzHervey here do it. She’s not yet had the chance to undress a bride, although she’s three years wed herself. Let her remove Emma’s chemise."

  As Lady Amicia spoke, she sent Kate a sidelong and reassuring glance. Never so grateful for a rescue in all her life, Kate offered her a tiny smile in return.

  A moment later, Emma stood clothed only in the waves of her long red-gold hair. Lady Haydon moved to the door and laid her hand upon the latch. Her plain face was flushed, while her eyes fair danced with excitement.

  “Are we ready?" she asked of the women within the room.

  “Aye," all but Kate shouted, as the others formed a wall between the bride and those soon to enter, so none might see Emma before the proper moment.

  Lady Haydon threw open the door. Gerard d’Essex flew into the room, borne on the shouts and laughter of those who shoved their way in behind him. The bridegroom came to a halt but a foot from the nearest woman, his cap already off and his belt missing. The men ringed Gerard for what seemed but an instant. Clothing flew in every direction, then they stood back from the naked man.

  “Your husband is ready, sweet bride," crooned one young swain. “Now, stand aside you old crones, so yon wife can see her man and he, her."

  At his command, the women parted. Emma’s sisters lifted her hair, smoothing the long tresses over her shoulders and down her back. Bright color seeped up Gerard’s neck as he gazed at his naked wife.

  “I find no flaw," he said, his voice thick and quiet.

  “Nor do I," Emma giggled.

  Much to Kate’s surprise, Gerard’s shaft jerked, then began to rise of its own accord. The men hooted and stamped their feet in approval.

  “How now, daughter," Lady Haydon cried out with a laugh. “It seems your sire has found you an eager husband. Remember you all I’ve taught? Let him kiss your lips," she started, only to be interrupted by another round of hooting, this time from both men and women.

  “Upper or lower lips?" one man asked.

  “Lower is better," shouted the aged countess, “for every woman has an easier time of it when a man kisses her nether lips." Her laugh was a hen’s cackle.

  Kate’s ears burned. She looked in pity at the bride, wishing she had some comfort to offer. But Emma wasn’t cringing at all. Instead, she laughed, her eyes brighter than the color on her cheeks.

  “It’s Gerard, not Emma, we should instruct," Lady Amicia called out, as she pointed to the bridegroom. “He needs to be reminded to stroke and caress until his wife’s breath comes fast. He mustn’t fail to please her, not if he wants a handsome babe nine months hence."

  Despite the bright color blazing on Gerard’s face, he glowered at those around him. “I know what to do."

  “Do you?” Emma asked, her tone sultry. She strode to the bed and patted the mattress. “My mother has given me her instructions. If you have more to teach me, my liege, come show me now."

  Gerard’s eyes widened. His shaft saluted. “Out!" he shouted, already pushing his friends toward the door. The women followed, still shouting bawdy instructions.

  Kate trailed at their heels, one of the last to leave. She was barely inside the solar, Lady Haydon’s private parlor, which occupied the other half of the keep’s upper chamber, when the door slammed behind her. It was the sign the dozen or so soldiers waiting in the solar wanted. Each one lifted his shield and began to beat upon it with his sword, all of them shouting like wild men.

  Behind the soldiers musicians lifted their instruments. The piper teased a long, squealing belch from his pipes, the drum banged, the violist sawed his bow across his viol’s strings, while the sackbut bellowed. The shivaree had begun. The noise would continue for as long as those in the solar could hold out, their object to distract the bride and groom from completing their marital duty.

  Kate covered her ears and raced out the door that led from solar to hall. Here at Haydon the keep tower was too small to accommodate more than the small solar and the lord’s bedchamber. Everyone else lived in the massive stone hall that sprang from the keep’s side, that space being three times as long and just as tall as the tower.

  The chamber was a fine construct, its walls dressed in plaster painted with a brightly colored design, save that there were no true windows. Instead, narrow, cross-shaped openings, meant for crossbows not viewing, cut through the thick walls at regular intervals. Painted linen panels draped these defensive windows to stop drafts.

  Since fabric stopped light as well as air, a bank of torches ran along each long wall and a great fire danced upon a central hearthstone to drive back the room’s natural gloom. Just now a pair of jugglers were tossing their balls above the flickering flames, pretending they burned their hands each time they caught one. For all their screams, their voices were barely audible over the roar of conversation in the room, so many guests were gathered here.

  To Kate’s surprise, Lady Amicia waited for her just inside the hall. The young widow’s smile blazed on her face, her green eyes glowing with the promise of friendship.

  “Why, here you are at last,” Lady Amicia said, threading her arm through Kate’s. “I’ve been waiting all evening to meet you. Now that the bride and groom are settled and you’re finally free of your sire, we have some time to become acquainted.”

  A little startled by this odd introduction, Kate cleared her throat. “My thanks for what you did in there. I just couldn’t--”. The remainder of her statement died unspoken. She wasn’t going to tell someone she didn’t know about her miserable wedding night and marriage.

  Lady Amicia dismissed her gratitude with a wave of her hand. “No thanks are necessary. All I knew was that you looked uncomfortable and those old biddies were going peck at you for their own amusement. I’m Lady Amicia de la Beres, but you may call me Ami if I may call you Kate.”

  Delighted, Kate smiled. “If you please.”

  “I do, indeed,” Ami said, her smile all the brighter. “I knew from the moment I saw you we were bound to be friends. Come. We’ll find a place to sit where it’s quieter and we can talk.”

  She paused to scan the hall. With the newlyweds abed many of the older guests were saying their good nights to their host. Without their elders’ watchful eyes, the more youthful folk were at last free to wandering the hall as they would. So many people up and about meant there w
ere plenty of empty tables and benches from which to choose.

  “There, back in yon corner,” Ami said, pointing to a table that was far from the hall’s noisiest area. “We won’t hear a word anyone else says over there. I can’t speak for you, but I’m sick of all this talk of rebellion and pence-pinching kings.”

  “Rebellion?” Kate asked in surprise as they went. Even though she knew it was silly, she shot a glance behind her toward Haydon’s door, as if some troop might appear through it this very moment. “What rebellion?”

  Ami shot her a sidelong glance. “Folk said you’d been cloistered in your marriage, and I see now it must be true if you don’t know that some men call for an uprising against our king.” Ami shook her head. “They talk, saying our monarch will never be content until every knight and nobleman in the realm has an empty purse and no weapons in store.

  “But enough of that,” she finished, as she took a seat, then pulled Kate down on the bench beside her. “Now, we must tell each other everything,” Ami commanded. “I’ll start by saying I’ve been nigh on dying to meet someone of my own age and rank. Even though I’m only a sheriff’s widow I came into the king’s custody upon my husband’s death. I am the lowest ranking widow in his custody and the other ladies at court take great pleasure in snubbing me when they can.”

  “If the royal court is so unfriendly, why don’t you leave?” Kate asked.

  Ami shot her a disbelieving look. “You have been cloistered, haven’t you? Would that I could leave, but the king will never let me go. The warden he gave me is busy milking my dowry and widow’s portion for every pence that can be wrung from my lands, sharing half of what he takes with his royal master.”

  Kate stared at Ami in shock. “They can do that?”

  “Who’s to stop them? Our John is still England’s king, even if he’s no longer Normandy’s duke,” Ami replied bitterly. “I should be grateful that he hasn’t made a gift of me, the way he’s done with some of the other widows, and married me off to one of those hired foreign swords of his. Be grateful you’re not in his custody.”

  Kate stared at Ami for a startled moment. If this was what the king did, then no wonder there were those who talked of rebellion. Still, Ami’s call for gratitude teased a breath of scorn from her.

  “Don’t be thinking me the fortunate one. You heard Lady Haydon. My sire cannot wait to see me out of his home and into another marriage I don’t want.” As Kate spoke, her gaze shot over the hall until she located her father.

  Tall and thin, Lord Bagot’s shoulders were bowed, bearing as they did the death of two wives, his only brother and nephew, all three of his sons--one only recently--and one of three daughters. Although the hair on the top of his head was gone, the lower half of his narrow face was hidden beneath a rusty bush of a beard. It was his beard that wagged, not his chin, as he spoke to a portly middle-aged man. Intensity beamed from his gray eyes, the only feature he shared with his daughter.

  Of a sudden, Lord Bagot straightened to scan the room. When he located his daughter, he pointed rudely at her.

  She cringed. “Must he be so obvious?”

  “What’s he doing?” Amicia asked, looking toward Lord Humphrey.

  “He’s pointing at me,” Kate complained. “Lord, but I can hear him now. So, says he to each man he meets, I hear your grandsire, son, nephew, brother, is looking for a wife. Would he be interested in my daughter?”

  “Why doesn’t he spare me the torment and simply call out wife for sale for all to hear?”

  Ami laughed. “Don’t say that too loudly. It may give him ideas.” Her amusement died into a smile filled with quiet mischief. “I vow, at least half the eligible men in England are here in this room. What say you? Why don’t we choose one of them to be your husband? Then you can tell your sire which man to approach. That way you’ll get a decent husband, he’ll get you married and there’ll be no more pointing.”

  “I hardly think he’d consider any man I suggest even though the decree grants the right to choose my next husband to me,” Kate said, without rancor. No sensible woman beneath the age of two score who yet had living male relatives expected to have a say over the choice of her mate, and Kate felt she was nothing if not sensible. Still, there was something tantalizing about this game. What could it hurt?

  She smiled at Ami. “As you will. Find me the perfect husband.”

  “First you must tell me the sort of man you want,” her new friend replied.

  With a happy sigh, Kate let her attention leap to the table where her father’s steward sat with other knights his equal. “He should be a man like Tristan or Lancelot, someone slender and strong, not bulky.” At three and thirty, Sir Warin de Dapifer was tall, his form long and lean. “He should own a sweet voice and be courteous to a fault.” Just as Warin was. “His hair and beard should be fair.” As was Warin’s hair and mustache. “His eyes should be gray.” Warin’s eyes were blue; it was his only flaw. In all other ways, her father’s steward was the perfect knight.

  He was a man Kate could never have and not just because he was her father’s employee. Warin was landless. Without income, no man could marry.

  The sheer hopelessness of their love made Kate’s heart fill and ache in the same glorious instant. She took the pain as proof that her love for Warin was true, as true and pure and chaste as love was meant to be. And Warin loved her in return, their affection unsullied by carnal desires. Kate couldn’t wait for the joust. Although doing so might well jeopardize his position in her father’s house, she hoped Warin would ask to be her champion and wear her token.

  “All that in one man?” Ami laughed and shook her head. “I’ll do my best.”

  The sheriff’s widow scanned the hall, her gaze flitting from man to man, then she caught her breath. “Oh my,” she said, her voice husky, her words barely audible over the thunder of conversation and hazy echoes of the shivaree from the solar. “I think I have just the man for you.”

  “You do?” Kate tore her gaze from Warin to look where Ami indicated, even though she knew it wasn’t possible there could be two such perfect knights in all the world.

  In the open space where the wedding party had done its dancing stood a clutch of six young men. Although Kate couldn’t hear them, she knew they were conversing, for their heads turned from one to another in a way that marked the flow of words. It was the nearest man Ami indicated. Flickering torchlight made his fair hair gleam like gold. Shadows clung beneath the sharp lift of his cheekbones and marked the gentle curve of his brow and his nose’s slight hook.

  “Who is he?” Kate asked, knowing she’d been introduced to him at some time during the day. With all the folk she’d met or re-met today, she couldn’t recall his name.

  “Lord Haydon’s natural son, Sir Josce FitzBaldwin,” Ami replied.

  Kate gave a quiet snort. “A bastard? My father would never accept a bastard.”

  “He’s not of low birth,” Ami protested, as if she thought persuading Lord Bagot’s daughter of the man’s worth would have any effect on her sire. “His mother was a knight’s daughter. Lord Haydon claimed him and saw to his raising. Why, he even sent Sir Josce to be raised at court and knighted by the king.”

  “None of that matters to my father,” Kate retorted with a harsh breath. “Gentle or not, as long as Sir Josce can’t inherit Haydon, my sire won’t consider him.”

  “Well, if you won’t have him, I will,” Ami said, her sigh filled with longing. “I came to know him at court this spring after I first entered into the king’s custody.” She broke off as across the room Sir Josce threw back his head to laugh. Even from a distance, the sound was merry enough to make Kate smile in reaction.

  Again Ami sighed. “No matter his birth or his worth, that is a fine-looking man, one I wouldn’t at all mind taking to my bed.”

  “Ami!” Kate cried, shock reverberating all the way down to her toes. She reared back on the bench to stare in dismay at her new friend.

  “Ami, what?” Ami aske
d, wicked amusement glinting in her pretty eyes. “That Sir Josce isn’t fine-looking or that he’s not the sort of man I should take to my bed?”

  Hot color washed Kate’s cheeks. “Say no more! A proper woman doesn’t jest about such things,” she chided, sounding every bit as harsh as had Lady Adele.

  God in His heaven knew Adele would have beaten Kate for such a comment. Adele divided women into two classes: those who controlled themselves to live pure lives, loving only chastely and from afar, and those who gave way to lust’s temptation and paid the price. Kate knew what that price was, because Adele had never ceased to remind her. Either the sinner rightfully died at her kinsmen’s hands or she was ruined in the eyes of the world. Of the two fates Adele claimed ruin the worse.

  Ami laughed, her brown plaits sliding against the breast of her red overgown as she shook her head at Kate. “How old are you, Kate?”

  Sensing there was more to this question than mere curiosity, Kate hesitated. “A full score. Almost a score and one.”

  “Ah, four years younger than me. And you were married how long?” Ami wanted to know.

  “Five years,” Kate replied, her suspicion growing that there was some taunt hiding behind these questions.

  “As long as that?” Ami asked, pressing a hand to her breast as if shocked. “I’d not have thought it, with you still so innocent.”

  “I’m not naive,” Kate protested, piqued by this assessment of her character.

  “As a babe,” Ami replied, the corners of her mouth lifting. “If you weren’t, you’d know the difference between wishing and doing. I know better than to take any man to my bed, no matter how much I might want him. That doesn’t mean I can’t dream. Now, since you won’t have Sir Josce, what about that one?” She pointed.

  Still stung by Ami’s assessment of her Kate glanced at the man Ami meant. He was pudgy and so short that his head wouldn’t have topped Kate’s shoulder. Relief that Ami had abandoned the dangerous topic of illicit relations, even if it was for a taunt, washed over Kate. She shook her head and joined this new game. “Nay, too short.”