Dark Maiden

by Lindsay Townsend

  “Do you know why no one dreams in church?”

  “Can we light a proper fire as well as the braziers?”

  “For how long will we have to stay here?”

  “You do not need to,” replied Geraint flatly to the last questioner, irritated by the male smith’s bullying. “You are not womankind.” Why the devil is the smith in church anyway? To catch up on his prayers or because his soul matches his lumpy, graceless form and he loves to stir up trouble?

  The other urgent inquiries he fended off, turning down the request for a “proper fire” lest that burn the building down, but relieved Yolande’s instinct that the maids would be safe and dream free in church had been right.

  Any other time, he might have juggled and played for the scattered crowd, but he wanted to get back to his woman.

  “Has she talked to the priest yet?” That was Godith asking, just as he sidled out through the church door.

  “Before God, she is speaking to him now,” he answered blithely, uncaring if Yolande was or not. If he knew her, she would be speaking plenty, to Father William included if he made the mistake of reappearing at his house. But she would be busy too, as he intended to be.

  * * * * *

  She had found a rat’s nest, a dead mouse and half a rotten loaf at the priest’s house, but no evil herbs or charms or parchments of spells. Using a broom with most of its bristles missing, Yolande swept the mess out of the door to bury later and prayed throughout the building, her arms raised to the rafters. Inhaling slowly, she smelled no sulfur or old blood but caught a scent instead of musk and peppermint.

  Geraint returns. Hurrying to finish, glad she had shaken the bedding earlier and put lavender and hyssop under the pillows for sweetness and protection, she moved the table close to the flickering fire. I am like a housewife awaiting her man from the fields.

  And here he was, stooping under the lintel, closing the door, holding out handfuls of flowers—white and pale-cream hellebores.

  “The Christmas rose, to drive out evil,” she remarked, about to ask where he found them, when a muffled oath made her break off. Half amused, half stricken, she watched Geraint fall with his precious blooms, facedown, smack on the newly swept earth floor, one hand raised to protect the flowers.

  He was cursing in Welsh, something about tripping over nothing. She left him to find his feet again. He did so and thrust the white mass of petals at her. “You could have helped me up.”

  “And spoil your pretty gesture?”

  He gave a sharp bark of laughter as she took the flowers from him and buried her face in their cool white hearts. “So much for courting you, cariad, with me as fine as a clumsy dancer. Should I fall on my arse next?”

  “Hush. They are beautiful.” They were her first from any man and a tide of emotion robbed her of more speech or even thanks.

  Understanding, he softened at once, brushing a fingertip across a roselike flower. “I did not steal them, either, leastways only from the common woodland.”

  “I was not going to ask.”

  “Here.” Somehow in his mad caper he had rescued a flower and kept it. He trailed it delicately across her forehead, the fleshy petals as lush as a caress. “Or here?” He tickled the flower down her cheek and neck, to nestle between her breasts.

  He kissed her deeply. She had her legs coiled about his waist and they were naked, flushed and burning. Aware of a pounding, sweet itch between her legs, she clamped her thighs higher and tighter about his middle, straddling him, sheathing him. A pulsing in her ears was either her tongue registering beats of rapture or her blood singing.

  “With me again, cariad?” Geraint snapped his fingers at her. “I thought flowers melted a maid’s heart, not made her faint. Next time I will bring two armfuls and have you in ecstasy. By the way, why can I not have these voluptuous dreams?”

  “I was not—” Yolande began then stopped, admitting to herself she had been dreaming awake. A wave of sticky heat and sickness surged up her throat as she dropped the flowers. She reached blindly behind herself and snatched at an inner roof timber, gripping it tightly. Only pride prevented her from tottering. “I have been invaded,” she whispered.

  She made it to the hut doorway before she threw up, aware of Geraint holding her hair out of the way. “Do not touch me,” she warned him, feeling unclean, penetrated.

  I was ripe for this, with my own sin and wicked desires.

  “Never, cariad, you will not do that. You will not push me away, put me aside like the house cat.” He brought his face close to hers, ignoring her shameful sickness, and gave her chin a sharp flick with his finger. “Hear me on this, woman.”

  His eyes blazed with stubborn, cussed male pride and something else, a hurt she recognized and one she could not help responding to.

  “I do not mean to hurt you.”

  “Nor I you, Yolande, but we do because we care. Would you have it otherwise?”

  They were of a height and she wrapped her arms about him, laying his head on her shoulder. He let her do it too.

  “I cannot help but think of sin,” she admitted. “The smell of you, the sight of you…”

  He laid his head on her other shoulder. “We shall marry and not burn.”

  She knew the line from scripture, better to marry than burn, and tried to match his quiet reassurance. “Not quite yet, though, not with the priest who knows where.”

  “Possessed by who knows what,” Geraint agreed.

  “And I am distracted,” Yolande confessed, wondering why she spoke of such an obvious thing.

  Geraint looked up. “I can help you. We can help each other and still be chaste.”

  Panic and desire warred in her but what emerged from her mouth was the sulky, “You never mentioned this before.”

  He grinned. “I have my reasons.” He caught one of her hands and kissed the tips of her fingers. “Come then, beloved.”

  His “beloved” or his kiss or both made her lightheaded and slowed down the world. Part of her coolly thought, Why not? You have done enough tonight. And remember to collect your flowers.

  “But not here,” she insisted, turning first to retrieve her blooms.

  I do have my reasons, and one, cariad, is that if I ease that ache in your loins too much then we shall go on too long as we are, and I want more.

  Geraint wanted her as his, completely his, with his ring on her finger and his seed blooming in her belly. He followed her out of the priest’s house, noting she clutched the Christmas roses again. Her action gave him an idea of where to guide her next. “I shall take you to where I gathered the flowers.”

  “More courtship?”

  “It is new for me also. Do not mock, my maid.” He sped up to her, tucking his arm though hers as they walked, with her bow flexing between them like a living creature and a good reminder of what she was.

  My own Bathsheba, who can exorcise devils with a smile. She is married to her work but I am winning her. ’Tis a balancing act and a juggle but none the worse for it.

  First he gave her his flask of ale to clear her mouth, his thoughts running ahead like squirrels after pine nuts. He was no seducer, only a tumbler who in the past had spent carefree nights with widows and the wives of absent sailors and soldiers, easy on both sides and no harm, only pleasure.

  I am virgin at dealing with a virgin.

  But she was a queen, his queen, so he threw himself on her mercy. “How may I please you, lady?”

  She stopped on the woodland path, her eyebrows raised. “What happened to ‘I can help you’?”

  “Yes, yes, when we come to that, but there should be finesse in the performance, anticipation, tension as well as skill.”

  “I am no performance, Geraint.”

  Christ knew he was saying this badly. Tumbling was always far easier than words. “No, for sure you are not, just as I am no bard,” he gabbled.

  Agitated, he released her arm, threw a backflip and came up grinning with a ripe juniper berry between his teeth.r />
  “Fool.” She took the berry all the same and he breathed a little easier, especially when she bit half and passed the other to him.

  “If I were a Welsh prince of story, this berry would change into a feast,” he said, flipping the stone into the bush and eating the tart, fragrant flesh. Her flesh will be the sweeter and more fragrant to kiss.

  “Give me a Welsh dragon, instead, to sort here,” Yolande replied.

  “Have you dealt with dragons?”

  “Not yet but if these are indeed the end of days, perhaps soon.”

  “How is your back?”

  She stopped dead on the track. “What are you gossiping about?”

  “I am no gossip,” Geraint retorted, relieved all the same that his chatter had diverted her from the end of the world. Even I cannot compete with that, although in truth she has not dreamed of such misery for months. “But if your back aches, I could massage it.”

  “As you have before.” Wistful for an instant, she rolled her shoulders and looked about. “There is a swing tied to that beech tree.”

  “There is.” The other Christmas roses bloomed nearby but if she was enchanted by the swing, better still. “Sit on and I shall push you.”

  She glanced at him. “We could go together.”

  And with my present luck in loving, no doubt break the rope and crash into those nettles.

  “Or there is this log where we could sit.” Placing her Christmas roses carefully at one end of the fallen timber, she skipped a few steps and straddled it, about to lower herself down on the very spot he had chosen as a trysting place.

  And who is courting who here?

  “Hold.” He strode to her, brushing an invisible, unreal twig off her shoulder, anything to keep her in position so he could do this…

  “Hey!” She was giggling as he caught her up, tossed her in the air, caught her in his arms. Breathless, she laughed out loud as he sat on the log with her on his lap. “I am too heavy.”

  “Not you, you weigh not a morsel too much.” With one arm braced about her, he could feel her heart racing like his own.

  She smelled of cinnamon, cloves, lavender and honey and he was lightheaded at her closeness. In the gloom of the winter night, her skin shone like a black pearl. He snapped his fingers and a ribbon nestled between her fingers like a snowdrop. She chuckled contentedly and he was encouraged.

  He leaned closer. “Would you have a feast of tongues from me?”

  Instantly the mood between them changed, a crackling of fire to frost. She stiffened slightly, looking puzzled then disapproving. “I stayed once at a convent where the Abbess ate a dish of larks’ tongues with a fork. I was sorry for the birds.”

  “As would I be.” Cudgeling his scattered wits for another diversion, Geraint did not ask what a fork was. Again, in this strange courtship dance of theirs, she had wrong-footed him or had simply misunderstood.

  Perhaps I should challenge her to a game of flip pebble, where the loser strips off tunic and leggings. But the night was too still and crisp for that.

  “I should make a fire.” Yolande had spoken his thought—and more, she began to slide off his knees to act.

  “Let me,” he said urgently before she left him. After dipping into his tunic, he produced then juggled his fire flints in a flashing rush of stones.

  Still perched on the very edge of his lap, she watched the sparkling flints. “Do you juggle tongues as well?”

  “Evil tease! So you did understand my—”

  “Shut up,” she said in Welsh and kissed him.

  His mouth was honey and gold, all good things. She let him cradle her and kissed him slowly then swiftly, a girlish giggle rippling in her throat as their noses bumped briefly. She peeped under her lashes. Geraint’s eyes were tightly shut. His arms tightened about her and he muttered something in Welsh she did not catch.

  “What?”

  “’Better than a fire, my heart.’”

  “We should be making one.” But I do not want to move from here, nor for Geraint to stop.

  “I thought we were.” He swept his fingers down her back, swirling and tickling from her shoulder to her hip. A tide of prickling sweetness enveloped her.

  Her searching hands clutched his shoulders, tightened across the hard, wiry sinews of his back as he caressed her nether cheeks and down her thighs.

  “Long and strong, cariad, long and supple.”

  His arched back was as beautiful as a leaping salmon’s and his rump was firm and hard and round. He shifted on the log so her stretching fingers could squeeze one tightened cheek.

  We cannot do this, her conscience yammered but was no more than a bat squeak in her head against the rampant surge of her blood.

  “Ah, Bathsheba mine, you are so tasty. I have waited so long for this.”

  As have I.

  He glowed hot and bright like a bar of molten iron. She was torn between touching him everywhere and rending off his clothes.

  “Hurry,” she choked in a voice she hardly recognized as hers. She tugged at his motley, setting the bells jingling.

  “Royalty first.” He flipped up her tunic, plunging his fingers deep into her braies.

  The dizzying pulse of his flesh on her flesh made her buck and rear but he had her safe, he would not let her fall.

  “Ride me, darling.” He kissed her, his lips salty and hot on hers, the tips of his fingers gentle and slow as he brushed her woman parts.

  “So soft,” he whispered, stroking her black curls. “Moist and soft.”

  She tried to answer but only a hiss of air escaped her throbbing mouth. If this is carnal sin then give me more.

  “Savor it with me,” he whispered and stroked his fingers lower.

  Waves of shimmering heat tided over her from her scalp to her toes, lapping her nipples and between her thighs with a slow embrace, a kiss of sweet, rare sugarcane, rich and—

  “Honey,” she breathed. “Honeyman.”

  She was a wonder, his queen, a maid as lusty as a well-loved wife. And what will she grow to in our marriage? Embracing her as she floated back to herself, rejoicing in her fluttering eyelashes, her warm, languid body boneless and trusting in his arms, he felt victorious and honored together.

  Almost satisfied—and that would do very well for him.

  But she would have none of it. Before straightening her clothes, she rolled yet more snugly toward him. “What about you?”

  She ran her fingers down his chest and across his belly to unlace him and he had to count to ten in Latin to stop himself from flinging her onto her back and hurling himself into her.

  His manhood sprang and she took him firmly and gently in her hand, scooting off him onto the log so she might caress him more fully. She smiled at him, looking deeply and always into his eyes, and stroked and stroked.

  Her eyes filled his world, that and her tender touch. She fondled a little slowly, fumbled a little, but it was delicious.

  He heard himself roar and still she stroked, drawing every last drop of sweet pleasure from him, taking but also giving, giving…

  Blissed and satisfied, sated at long last, for an instant he knew no more.

  “Is it always as good?” Yolande asked an uncounted time later.

  Geraint grinned at her. He looked like a disheveled god. She crossed herself quickly against the blasphemy. He was still grinning.

  “Better?” she went on.

  “Oh yes, indeed.”

  She did not quite believe him but was too content to argue. “We should make a fire.” But it was comfortable, settled with their backs against the log, their clothes still undone. I could stay here all night.

  And then the howling started.

  Chapter Nine

  She dragged Geraint behind the log and scanned the clearing for her bow. It was a spear’s cast away, propped against an oak tree, and she dived for it but Geraint blocked her with an arm like an iron bar.

  “Me faster,” he spat.

  “Go!”

&n
bsp; He was already sprinting, his undone tunic and leggings flapping like the most comic of jester’s costumes, but he could run like a hunting dog, in a flowing, easy stride Yolande envied. Still watching him and glancing about to check for threats, she scrambled into her tunic. Flinching at her tender, sensitive breasts, she yanked up the laces.

  Geraint was back, panting. “What are you doing?”

  “My flowers.” Yolande wanted them—they were hers and only on the end of the log. She stretched but Geraint was there before her again, scooping the blooms up.

  “Honestly, woman.”

  “Honestly what?” Yolande buried her face briefly in the cool flower heads and ignored Geraint’s Welsh mumblings. He had gotten them for her so whatever he grumbled did not really matter.

  “Wolves or a troll?” he asked finally in English, still panting as he offered her the bow and the quiver of arrows.

  “Neither.” She tucked the flowers into her belt. “Too high and short for a wolf pack, too high for a troll. Village dogs.” She took the bow, notched an arrow and launched herself over the log at a run. Geraint matched her, coming so close her long hair slapped against him.

  “I do not need your protection,” she gasped, accelerating down the slope.

  His grin shined out for a moment in the shadows. “Maybe I need yours.”

  It was an old dispute between them. Yolande concentrated on rushing down the hillside, careening ’round the trees without smacking into a branch or missing her footing altogether. Keeping up without breaking sweat, his hair floating over his shoulder like Samson’s, Geraint leaped easily over an old wicker basket dropped some time ago in the woods by a villager and since forgotten.

  “Dogs…follow…Father…William?” he panted out between paces.

  “No.” She had no breath for more but she had her suspicions, oh yes.

  In a swirl of disturbed leaves and frosted twigs, they gained the main track to Halme. Yolande could hear the dogs more clearly now and knew where this pack had gathered.

  “Church?” Geraint also understood.

  She jerked her head in agreement, the track hard beneath her boots as her feet struck the cobbles of the village. Down past the reeve’s house, down past the forge, a flying jump over a filthy, refuse-filled stream, they pounded toward the church.