by R. R. Vane
“You’re not to glance upon her again. You’re not to touch her again. Ever again,” he uttered in a calm, yet loud voice, which reverberated on the practice field.
Several heads turned, and Tom knew too well that they all understood he was a commoner who’d spoken presumptuously to a lord. Yet there was no turning back from this. In the deep silence that followed, Sir Lambert decided to speak with a disdainful sneer.
“You dare to speak to me this way? And you presume to think I’d have any interest in your whore?”
Tom looked him straight in the eye when he uttered the word. And Tom’s face must have looked menacing, because he felt Tristram’s placating hand upon his shoulder.
“I’ll fight you. Here and now,” Tom tossed out to Sir Lambert loud and clear for everyone to hear.
Again, deep silence fell, and Tom knew too well, as a commoner, he didn’t have the right to issue a challenge to a lord. But he also knew other lords and knights were watching, and Sir Lambert would look a coward if he refused an open challenge on this practice field, even if it was a mere commoner who had uttered it.
Yet Sir Lambert was a coward indeed.
“I won’t dirty my hands to fight with a commoner. Besides, commoners are not even allowed to touch knightly swords,” he said in a disdainful voice.
Some of the lords around him acquiesced, yet others fell silent, now watching Tom intently.
“However he is a smith, and he is most certainly allowed to touch swords. There’s a fine sword of his own making hanging on his hip right now,” Sir Tristram said in his melodious voice.
“As if I’d ever let my own sword clash with a sword that’s not knightly. As if I’d ever let myself be touched by a hand that’s not that of a knight!” Sir Lambert said rather hastily.
Deep silence fell again, and Tom nearly cursed under his breath. He’d not expected even Sir Lambert to be so cowardly. Yet it seemed Sir Lambert was more so than he’d thought.
“Oh, fine,” Sir Tristram said at last with a heartfelt sigh.
He peeled away the leather gloves he was wearing and handed them to Tom.
“He shall wear these. These are the gloves of a knight, so you, Sir Lambert, need not fear a commoner’s hand may ever touch you. And he shall use my own sword. A knight’s sword,” he added, unfastening the sword he wore from his hip.
Tom saw it was the very sword Sir Lambert had wished for and that he’d ended up selling to Lord Tristram.
Sir Lambert looked even more uneasy, yet he tried his luck one last time.
“What of hauberk and helmet?” he tossed. “The peasant carries none and I will only fight in the proper manner. Where would he find these?” he added pointedly.
Tom had never fought as knights did, in a hauberk, and now Sir Lambert was triumphantly glancing at Sir Tristram, because Sir Tristram was slighter of form than Tom, and this lord’s own hauberk may not fit him.
“I’ll let him borrow mine. We’re about the same height and build,” Bertran FitzRolf said at once, and Tom saw Sir Lambert pale.
Yet it seemed now the lords around him were in favour of watching a spectacle, because they’d started urging Sir Lambert to teach the presumptuous commoner a well-deserved lesson.
“No one will mind if you end up slashing his throat,” one wispy lord called in a disdainful voice. “He’s just a commoner. You’ll only have to pay blood money for the killing, and I daresay it would be blood money well spent.”
A crowd of lords and knights had now gathered, and some laughed at the lord’s joke, yet some looked grim and silent. Sir Bertran and Sir Tristram called for their squires to help Bertran out of the hauberk and Tom into it.
“It’s somewhat different to fight in one than without it,” Tristram de Brunne advised, because, having fought Tom, he obviously knew Tom wasn’t used to fighting in armour. “Your movements will be slower. It’s quite heavy!”
Tom nodded. He’d never fashioned a hauberk, because swords and not armour was what he liked to make, but he was well used to handling metal. Metal had spoken to him ever since he was a child – a gift that ran in their family, his father had always said. So he resolved to treat the hauberk as he would any other thing he fashioned and strive to hear that strange inner voice which told him what to do. Perchance he’d hear it when he handled the hauberk.
“Thing is,” Bertran FitzRolf added, “you are a big man, just as I am. Use this to your advantage. The hauberk’s heavy. It will slow you down. Yet you’ve got strength. Tristram here relies on skill and speed in a swordfight. I have some skill as well, yet not as much speed. Strength’s what I have. I reckon you have that too.”
Tom nodded, grateful for the advice. The hauberk leant heavy on him when he went to meet his opponent, yet his heart seemed light in his chest. He had a job to do, and he’d resolved to do it. Sir Lambert would learn today never to lay a finger on Beth ever again.
So the swordfight started, and Tom had occasion to see Sir Lambert was not unskilled, and he was faster on his feet than Tom was in the hauberk, because of long years of training in it. Yet, Sir Lambert was still a coward, and he fought like a coward, always pulling back at the slightest sign of danger. Tom soon came to perceive, if he fought like mad, throwing his caution to the wind, and kept ceaselessly attacking, Sir Lambert’s parries became ever so weak. Tom was a big man and, just as Lord Bertran had advised, he used his big bulk to his advantage, moving forward and pushing, rather than pulling back or ducking. Tom didn’t know how much time passed, because he became frenzied during the fight, but at long last he saw with satisfaction that he’d managed to knock Sir Lambert to the ground, and when Sir Lambert tried to rise, he didn’t tarry to lay the tip of his sword on the fallen knight’s neck. And as he did so, he bent to speak softly, yet several of the knights and lords around them had occasion to hear what he said in English, which he knew most lords here perfectly understood.
“Next time you dare to follow or touch her, a sword just as sharp as this one will finish the job it started today. And I will not care if they hang me for it after that. I will have your blood… my lord.”
He added the title as an afterthought, putting all the disdain he felt for Sir Lambert in it. He then drew away, handing the sword to Lord Tristram with a gracious incline of his head. There was a longer silence which followed, and after the squires helped Tom out of Lord Bertran’s armour, several lords started casting Tom dark glances. Still, most of them gazed at him in a way which, Tom began to see, looked very much like grudging respect.
One of them even called out, “He fights quite well, for a commoner, that one. Pity he isn’t noble-born.”
Tom had never wished himself to be noble-born, yet he felt good under the praise. And he felt even better, when both Sir Tristram and Sir Bertran patted him on the back.
“Well done,” Bertran FitzRolf said with a broad grin. He soon added with a sigh, “You have humiliated him, and you should have a care. Sir Lambert is most spiteful.”
“I know a lady though,” Tristram de Brunne mused. “A lady we can put to good use.”
Both Tom and Bertran frowned at him, yet Tristram enlightened them with a smile.
“This lady is friends with Sir Lambert’s wife, and Sir Lambert’s wife is of high rank and from a family more powerful than his. Should she know her husband is so avidly chasing another woman, and acting like a fool, she would be none too pleased.”
“Trust My Lord Tristram to know a cunning way out of this,” FitzRolf said with a grin and a shake of his head.
“But Bertran’s right. You have humiliated Sir Lambert, so have a care,” Tristram advised.
Tom made his thanks to both lords for their gracious help, thinking he’d been right indeed to seek Sir Tristram out, and understanding, upon having also met Lord FitzRolf, that not all noblemen were of Sir Lambert’s ilk. He headed home, back to his Forge, with a self-satisfied grin on his face, and he kept that grin all day. Fortunately, Beth seemed too busy with her own chores to a
sk him where he’d been this morning, so he did not have to share the truth with her.
She only told him with a frown, not having missed his grin of self-satisfaction, “Why, Tom Reed, you look mightily smug today!”
Tom only shrugged, pretending to be too busy with his work to answer.
Chapter 9
The next day was hot, and Tom found it unusually hard to work in the sweltering heat of the Forge. So he decided to take some respite, and went to the kitchen to drink a cup of ale, because he had become quite thirsty.
He found the kitchen even hotter than the Forge on this scorching day and he eagerly poured himself the cup of ale he’d been craving. Beth, who’d been busying herself with their meal in the kitchen, now arched an eyebrow at him.
“You’re all sooty from the Forge! And this is a kitchen I’ve been taking great pains to keep clean!”
Tom drank his ale thirstily, but nodded at what she’d said when he was finished. It was true, she had been working hard in both the house and with the ledgers, and it would not do to disparage her work. He noted the dark smudges he’d already left on the table he’d leant on.
“I’ll take more care in the future,” he promised with an incline of his head, yet already beginning to think back upon the iron plough he’d been fashioning.
It was always like that when he was in the middle of his work. He became preoccupied and frenzied, and somewhat unmindful of those around him.
“See that you do!” Beth’s sharp voice roused him, and she was glancing at him with narrowed eyes.
It was a hot day, and she’d been working hard. Even with his head upon his own work, he couldn’t fail but notice the way her gown had become plastered upon her ample bosom. At present, Beth carried a wooden spoon in her hand that she no doubt meant to use to stir the pot which was merrily boiling on the stove.
A mischievous thought sprang into Tom’s head.
“Oh,” he said, making his voice surly on purpose. “And what are you going to do next time, whack me with that wooden spoon, if I don’t have a care?”
“You think I wouldn’t dare?” Beth countered, bristling at him, but Tom noted at once her own voice carried teasing in it.
“Would you?” he countered, cocking a dark eyebrow at her.
“For sure, Master Blacksmith, even if you think yourself so big and strong and mighty!”
Tom instantly decided his work could wait a while, because, as always, he was ahead with it. He closed the distance between them in two long strides, and took possession of the spoon Beth had been holding. He liked the feel and weight of it in his hand. And he found himself already savouring what he was going to do with it. It was somewhat strange that, before he’d met Beth and had put her over his knee, he’d never been concerned with this kind of strange love play. Yet he instantly resolved that it was Beth’s own fault, for having such a naughty, well-rounded behind that always seemed to beg for chastisement.
“Yet I am bigger and stronger than you. And now the spoon is in my hand,” he muttered, already lowering the spoon to give Beth a light whack over her clad bottom.
She glared at him, but Tom could see, at the same time, she could barely contain a smile.
“It’s so unfair! You’re the one who came traipsing all over the kitchen!” she made a show of complaining.
“Aye, this world’s most unfair,” Tom said with a deep sigh, as he was leading her to the table.
Beth looked at him in some alarm. “What are you doing?”
He bent her over the table, hoisting her skirts.
“Proving to you how unfair this world is,” he said suppressing a chuckle.
Her ample bottom was just as scrumptious as he recalled it to be since this morning when he’d been caressing it, while he’d been embedded within her sweet quim to the hilt.
“Wait? Wh-what?” Beth asked and there was some alarm in her voice.
He didn’t give her time to finish, but whacked her with the wooden spoon across her bare skin. The whack was mild and would not sting much, yet it was enough to already leave a delicious pink mark on one of Beth’s pristine buttocks.
“Think upon this as a reminder that you should always behave,” he said wickedly, bestowing yet another light, playful whack upon her behind.
“So unfair!” Beth muttered, yet he noted with a supressed smile that the protest in her voice was accompanied by a half moan.
He used the spoon a couple of more times, a bit harder, yet not hard enough to cause any real discomfort. What he was going for was a mild sting that would make his woman wild for his thrust. Because as soon as he made sure she was wet and moaning, he intended to thrust inside her for quick, delicious loving. He discarded the spoon, replacing it with his hand, because he was now dying to feel her skin heating beneath his palm. He bestowed light, teasing spanks upon her bottom, savouring both its silky warmth and the pinkness that soon appeared there. He paused his spanking, putting his fingers to work upon Beth’s quim, which was already wet.
“I trust you’ve learnt the lesson I meant to teach,” he said teasingly, as he was tending to her.
“What lesson?” his sharp-tongued woman immediately countered. “More like unfair punishment!”
Yet she was already breathless with want and had already started thrusting her naughty behind at him.
He gifted her with a hard, stinging smack, then grabbed her hips, positioning himself for entry.
“Wh-what?” Beth muttered. “Like this?”
Tom smiled to himself, recalling, so far, he’d never had her from behind. He adjusted her position to his liking, choosing not to answer her question. Soon she would get to see for herself the full benefits of this new way of loving which he meant to show her.
“Ahh,” Beth moaned, in sudden understanding, as he slid his cock inside her slick quim.
“You were saying?” Tom couldn’t help asking in full mischief, as he started driving in and out of her, loving the deeper way in which he could possess her from behind.
He was very aroused, and soon he understood it would be best to withdraw and pause in order to prolong her pleasure. So he withdrew from her body, gritting his teeth, aware of her deep sigh of regret.
“Tom,” his woman purred, and he knew only too well what she wanted.
Yet he would give her even better than that. He spanked her lightly, still having her bent across the table. Soon her bottom became more heated and almost red under his spanks, and she nearly peaked, moaning wantonly.
It was then he entered her again in one fluid thrust, driving hard inside her and loving the warmth of her freshly spanked bottom as it made contact with his front. Even when he knew she’d already climaxed, he drove in and out of her with a vengeance until he found his own release, knowing with certainty he’d never loved being inside a woman as much as he loved being inside this one.
It took a while for both of them to collect themselves, and it was belatedly that Beth ran to the pot which smelt burnt. And Tom supposed that, if they’d not been so wrapped up in their naughty lovemaking, they would have both been able to perceive the smell.
“Oh! Look what you’ve made me do! The potage is as good as ruined!” Beth cried in full chagrin.
Tom grinned with an unconcerned shrug, because for all he cared she could now feed him pig slop. He was far too content at this time to mind what he’d eat tonight.
Beth scowled at him darkly.
“You’re a fine one to smile, Tom Reed, when I’m the one who has to see to today’s meal!”
Tom decided they would all treat themselves with a meal from the cookshop, and resolved to send William to fetch it. Yet, by the way Beth had menacingly taken hold of the wooden spoon, he thought it more prudent to tell her of it a bit later and to make himself scarce at this time. Nevertheless he couldn’t help adding some mischief.
“I forgive you for the ruined meal and I vow not to spank you for it!” he called loftily as he was hurrying out of the kitchen.
He pause
d outside to listen, with a smile, to the things Beth was calling after him from the kitchen, thinking she was now giving him the perfect excuse to spank her again and nearly resolving to go back to do so. Yet he had work to do, and she had her own chores, so he headed back to his anvil with a sigh of regret. He hadn’t had the courage to tell her that the back of her gown and parts of her own delicious and somewhat reddened skin were now smudged with black, because she’d after all been the recipient of tender ministrations from a master blacksmith. By the dangerous heights to which her voice now rose, he understood, with a renewed sigh and a shake of his head, that she’d been at last able to perceive the damage for herself.
At the Forge, the boys started casting him strange glances when he resumed his work, and he belatedly realized he wore a wide smirk upon his face which must make him look stupid. He tried to wipe it, but simply failed.
Declan cleared his throat.
“Ha, Master Tom, I don’t really see what you’re smiling about. I think the whole neighbourhood could hear her giving you the sharp end of her tongue.”
“Aye, even my ears blushed at some of the things she shouted,” Micah chimed in.
As usual, William was silent, yet he shyly nodded in assent.
Tom shrugged, attempting to cast them a stern look and tell them to mind their own business. Yet he was unable to look stern at this moment. He supposed he was still wearing a silly grin of contentment upon his face.
“Back to work, lads,” he muttered, not knowing what else to say, and blissfully recalling to send William to fetch a meal for them from the cookshop.
After a while, he realized he’d even started whistling to himself as he worked, a thing he hadn’t done in long years. And he realized there was another thing he hadn’t felt in years that he was experiencing now. He was… happy. He hadn’t felt genuinely happy in a long while, and he understood it was the woman who had so suddenly come into his life that was making him so. At first, he tried to chide himself for feeling the way he did. Yet he could not. It was only ten weeks since Beth had first entered his home, yet now he simply could not picture how grim and joyless his life had been before he'd met her.