The Modest and the Bold

by Leelou Cervant

  “No, my lady,” began old Judith, pouring her mistress a cup of hippocras. “But on my way up from the buttery, I overheard one of the hall servants say that she must have attained Sir Richard’s permission to visit her cousin for a few days in Burlefurd.”

  Disappointment sluiced over Constance at this unforeseen turn, for it meant that there would not be a repeat of that mornings fascinating goings on—at least, not until Adele came back.

  Thanking Judith for the spiced wine, she took a sip, set the cup down, and resumed her work, setting herself, once again, on the path of forgetfulness.

  FIVE

  Fulke had just stepped out of his private quarters, located in Folstoc’s inner gatehouse, when one of two passing men-at-arms, on their route up for guard duty, mentioned Adele’s name.

  “Still trampin’ off to Burlefurd like a bitch in heat, eh?”

  “That young bull’s been shaggin’ her since first she bled. She’ll not cease now merely ‘cause she’s got some prized courser mountin’ her every chance he gets.”

  Fulke’s cheeks burned with humiliation as the two men sneered and disappeared into the stairwell. Stepping back into his chamber he shut the door and walked over to the open window. Placing an arm along the stone frame above his head he gazed out beyond the walls of the castle to the north, towards the village of Burlefurd. In spite of his having known from the off about Adele’s intimate relationship with her cousin, Symond, like a fool, he’d actually assumed that making his sentiments for her clear would prod her to cease all goings on with any other man. It was possible that the two men-at-arms were mistaken and that Adele had not departed Folstoc as claimed. However, as he’d not seen her after the midday meal, more and more the truth sank in. Still, he would allot her a chance to prove them wrong. After all, it was not as if he was her legal husband to demand her loyalty.

  Sighing in growing disparagement, Fulke pulled off the fresh long-sleeve cote he’d put on after coming in from practice with the squires. Collecting his wineskin he lifted the strap over his head so that it hung across his chest, the wineskin itself nestled under his arm. Then he put back on his cote and left his chamber. A tough knight he might be, he was proud as well, and he would shield himself from further embarrassment using any tactic he could.

  Like most of the castle folk he proceeded in the direction of the keep, seemingly for supper. But instead of making his way to the wooden stairs leading up to the keeps entrance he passed the massive structure, continuing on through the inner postern that led out into the back of the outer ward. From there he marched to the farthest extremities of that quarter. As expected, Wulfric, the main guard of the external postern gate, nodded in respect and let him out. Without the castle, Fulke took the usual route to the old Norman hall, his step lacking its typical enthusiasm when trekking along that path. Going into the old building he stationed himself against the very trunk he’d fucked the comely Adele just that morning.

  Remembering it was the same place he’d burrowed his face into Lady Constance’s nectarous flesh, Fulke barked in ironic laughter. Here he was, fuming over Adele’s possible disloyalty when he’d practically taken another woman before her eyes.

  Hypocritical bastard!

  Giving another bark of laughter Fulke shook his head and took off his cote. Tossing it back across the trunk he lifted the wineskin strap over his head and plucked the stopper out. Lifting the pouch he took a swig.

  The hall grew dark.

  Fulke stared up at one of the coverless windows. While nightfall had not completely fallen, only a faint light pooled below the window. Sighing, he slunk down further against the trunk. Folding an arm behind his head he lifted the wineskin again.

  SIX

  “My lady? Do I go down for a tray?”

  Constance was sitting upon a linen draped stool, bathing her naked skin with the marigold infused water she’d called for. Considering the current state of her appetite she handed the wet cloth to Elsa, one of her young serving maids, and took the drying cloth from Ella, Elsa’s sister and Constance’s other serving maid. “I daresay a bite of something would do me more good than not.” When the old woman nodded and started off, she added, “Nothing too heavy, mind.”

  Giving the signal for the sisters to dispose of the washing things, Constance retrieved the day old chemise from the trunk at the foot of the bedstead and put it back on. As she did so she was reminded of how Adele had admired its fineness and Sir Fulke its revealing neckline.

  Alone now, Constance collected the gold silk Persian coat her brother had acquired for her while on crusade (he’d accompanied their father, who’d suffered terribly under the sweltering temperatures of that eastern world and perished after consuming contaminated food just before the Siege of Acre) with Prince Edward prior to his becoming king. Wrapping it about herself she floated past the window on her way to collect her comb and happened to see someone walking without the castle. Stepping into the window recess that she might get a better peek, she recognized the tall man’s straight, shoulder length hair straightway. The direction he was headed only served to cement her belief that it was Sir Fulke.

  Frowning, Constance speculated why he would be going to the old hall if Adele was not currently at Folstoc. It occurred to her that he might be going there to meet with another female, but she dismissed the notion immediately. From what she knew of the man’s character, he seemed not the type to dip his wick wantonly. His earlier reluctance to include her in his and Adele’s intimate tryst was testimony to this.

  Coming to the conclusion that Sir Fulke was unaware of Adele’s having gone, a twinge of pity stabbed Constance’s heart at the idea of him waiting in vain. Trusting she should act before her nerve abandoned her, Constance sped to collect her cloak. She was closing it about her, secreting the fact that she had nothing on underneath save her chemise and Persian coat, with a brooch when Ella and Elsa returned.

  Never one for falsehoods Constance answered the concerned glimmer in the pair’s eyes by stating the truth without divulging her true intentions. “There is something I must see to.” Hastening to leave, she said over her shoulder, “Tell Judith not to worry—I shall return soon.”

  Despite the stairwell of the Lady’s Tower being like all others in that it winded down to the cellar level, it was not much used by the servants to gain that lowest level of the keep. So it was that Constance, as before, descended unnoticed. Taking one of the torchlights from its wall bracket she hurried over to the corner of the cellar where the trapdoor was covered by an empty barrel and pushed it aside. Descending into the secret passageway she tramped down the narrow stretch, the torch casting flickering shadows upon the walls. Arriving at the end of the passage she set the torch in the wall bracket there and ascended the rude steps.

  As expected, the old hall was shadowy except for a pale circle of light upon the floor beneath a window. Leaving the trapdoor open, Constance scanned the hall for the knight, but could see only silhouettes of long forgotten items. “Sir Fulke?”

  No answer.

  She considered if perhaps he reckoned it wise not to answer the call of an unknown. Padding into the light beneath the window, she tried again. This time, a dark, familiar voice floated out from the shadows. Her belly fluttered.

  “And what, pray tell, is so important that this good lady would pursue this lowly knight, and by secret means, too?”

  At the notion that Sir Fulke might think himself lowly in the slightest engendered Constance’s heart to break a small degree. “I…I saw you from my window, sir, and supposed, mayhap…mayhap you were unaware that Adele had gone. I judged it only right that I come to avail you of her leave-taking that you might not wait in vain.” A chuckle answered her explanation.

  “I am aware that Adele has gone, my lady.”

  Pondering why the man had come to the old hall if he’d already known about Adele’s having left Folstoc, Constance’s brows knitted. “Oh. Well, then I beg pardon for having disturbed you, sir. Good eve.” Glad
that the darkness would hide her embarrassment, she hurried to vacate the shadowy hall and Sir Fulke’s desirable presence. Before she achieved a handful of steps, strong arms wrapped around her, halting her. She shivered at the caress of his lips upon her ear

  “Adele is not here,” said that sensuous voice, “but you are, my lady.”

  Constance’s sex swelled at the meaning behind those words. She neither answered nor pulled away. Again, he asked why she’d come. “I told you, sir—to make sure you knew that Adele had gone, lest you wait in vain.”

  “That was very kindly of you, my lady. But pardon me if I cannot trust you came here merely for that.”

  Constance opened her mouth to protest, stiffening when his hands traveled up her cloaked arms to her neck. With deft fingers he unfastened her brooch and hauled off her cloak, letting them fall to the floor. He did likewise with her Persian coat, though he treated it with more care, lying it and its brooch upon the trestle nearby. One of his hands sank into her hair, pulling her head back. He bowed his head and kissed the sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder. She sucked in a breath. The delightful sensation tripled the second he tugged the front of her chemise down and filled his palm with one of her aching breasts.

  Fisting a hand into his hair, Constance rocked her bottom along the hard evidence of Sir Fulke’s desire. He pulled up her skirt and snaked a hand underneath and between her thighs, his fingers sinking easily into her wet folds and deeper. Her knees buckled. He held her tight, tormenting her with his mouth and hands, and guided her down to the floor to settle upon a thigh and hip, his solid, hot form at her back.

  What ensued Constance would later recall as nothing short of a frantic coupling wrought with savage need. One minute, she was reclined against Sir Fulke, mewling as he tortured her with his penetrating fingers, with his squeezing hand at her breasts, with his heated panting in her ear, and the next, her chemise was hiked-up about her waist, her knee was pulled up to his chest, and his member was filling her as she had imagined never to be filled again.

  With greedy hands she fondled and clawed him wherever she could reach, beseeching him to carry on with the rhapsody he was leading them through. His groans, steadily rising in volume, offered undeniable testimony of the pleasure he was receiving. It all drove Constance delirious.

  The best prize of all occurred as they reaped their supreme rapture together, for he fisted a hand in her hair and seized her mouth in an unrestrained kiss that stole her breath away. She shrieked as he wrenched his lips from hers, gripping her to him. Her sex convulsed about his member as it juddered inside her, pumping forth his hot seed.

  Gulping to catch his breath, Sir Fulke released Constance’s knee and set his head against hers, his arms yet enclosed about her. She fancied she could lay like that forever.

  For a few more moments, they lay just so, waiting for their breathing and hearts to slow. When he slide from her body Constance sat up. Dragging up the bodice of her chemise she shoved down its skirts. “I shall be missed…if I do not go now.” She shifted to rise, Sir Fulke grasped her arm.

  “Come the morrow, prior the midday meal. I will wait for you.”

  Constance could only nod as elation robbed her power of speech. Getting to her feet she donned her Persian coat and tossed her cloak over her shoulders, snatched up her brooches, and departed the hall via the same route she’d come. Taking up her torch she nearly ran all the way back up the underground corridor to the keep. Acquiring her apartments, faithful Judith was there waiting for her. She beamed as she hadn’t since she was a child. “All is well, Judith,” she offered, clutching the edges of her cloak together. “Off to bed with you.”

  The following morning, Constance endeavored to find enough to occupy herself with till midday, to hold her nervousness at bay. This proved all too easy, for in spite of Béatrix’s technical status as lady of the castle, it was Constance who actually saw to the running of the household, obliging Sir Galfrid, the steward, and Sir Ralph, the bailiff, to approach her with all their concerns instead of their lord’s wife. And Béatrix, being the indolent creature that she was, was all too happy to hand over the management of those jobs she considered “menial” to her sister-by-marriage.

  As Constance judged Folstoc’s steward and bailiff could be trusted in their positions, she rarely inspected their areas of responsibilities beyond what was necessary. This freed up her schedule for other important tasks, one of which was spending time in the still chamber with Ermine and her daughter, Hawise.

  Following her meeting with Cook about the day’s menus, Constance took herself off to the storage tower where the still chamber was located. Greeting the mother and daughter upon her arrival, Constance ambled over to the southeast facing window. Upon its stone ledge were stacked several onion shaped glass jars, their wide mouths plugged with specially crafted wooden corks. The sun caused their contents—previously dried pot marigold petals and lanolin oil—to glow a dark golden hue through their glazed glass, a sure sign that the infusions were ready. She picked up one of the containers and gave it a gentle shake.

  “Ah, so they are ready,” affirmed Ermine as she stepped beside her ladyship. Over her shoulder she ordered, “Get the jars and the strainers, Hawise.”

  Taking the jars from their month-long position in the sun, Constance set them upon the work table below the window. “We shall require some beeswax as well.”

  Ermine raised a finger and nodded in remembrance. “Ah, yes. I had forgotten that the marigold salve is running low.”

  Smiling at the woman with fading yellow hair beneath her linen veil, Constance unstopped one of the containers as the pretty Hawise, a quieter, younger version of her mother, brought over a collection of stout, long-necked beakers and several wooden bowl strainers. Constance set one of the tall, tri-legged strainers over the mouth of one of the beakers. After setting up the others in like fashion she and Hawise opened all the jars and dumped their contents into the wooden strainers. As the process of extracting all the excess oil from the saturated petals would take a while, both women left the work table to help Ermine with the setting up of the pots they would use to boil the wax after the marigold oil was ready.

  The water set to boiling, Constance collected a pair of gardening shears and the large, smooth bucket they used for collecting seeds. Since she used pot marigolds for many things, a constant supply was always needed in the still chamber, principally its seeds that they might resow the flower every spring.

  Heading for the door, she informed over her shoulder, “Some of the flower heads have gone to seed. I want to collect them afore the wind or vermin can get to them. I shan’t be long.” Taking the winding stairwell down to the great hall she exited the keep and drifted down its wooden steps. Bucket swinging from her arm she strolled across the ward towards the garden off the kitchens.

  Entering the low-walled garden Constance skirted beds of pottage typicals and medicinal necessaries, halting in front of a central one thick with pot marigolds. Setting down her bucket, she kneelt and sifted through the bright flower heads in search of those whose petals had withered and dropped off. Finding one, she pressed upon te shriveled head. It immediately broke apart into seeds and plant debris. She removed the mass from its stem and dropped it into her bucket. Taking the shears she’d brought along, she cut back the headless stalk to its first set of leaves.

  Setting down the shears, Constance wondered if Sir Fulke cared for the scent of pot marigold. As she used the blossom in her bathing water on a regular basis, she did not doubt he’d caught the scent emanating from her during their stints of intimacy.

  Continuing with her seed harvest, Constance had no idea that she was being scrutinized at her work by the very object of her private contemplations.

  * * *

  Fulke had been making his rounds of the inner ward’s wall when he’d stepped from the tower that loomed nearest the kitchens and espied the Lady Constance down in the garden there. He neither halted in his step nor took his eye
s from that creature who had driven him, with her astonishing sensuous appeal, to forget all about the lovely Adele last eve—something he’d never imagined possible. What had commenced as a thirst for revenge against Adele’s whoring had transformed into something unforeseen: a fierce coupling that had only served to whet his appetite for the lady. For not only had she shoved Adele’s memory to the foreground of his mind, she’d haunted him through the night and into the daylight hours of the morn. Even now, as he strode down the wall, apprising her, the remembrance of her soft, fragrant skin, her arousing cries, her hot, succulent sex stimulated a jerk in his manhood.

  Nearing the portal that led into the next tower, Fulke finally heeded what the lady was actually doing. He’d been in the kitchen gardens once or twice. He remembered the pot marigolds swaying in the breeze with vibrant life at the center of that place. Recalling their pungent odor, his eyes narrowed to dark slits. Is that what I smelt clinging to her skin? Now that he saw her down among those particular blossoms, he was certain that that was what had emanated from her body during both of their intimate occasions.

  Catching the sound of footsteps echoing up through the dark tower stairwell ahead, Fulke snapped his eyes forward, giving the impression that they’d been trained in that direction the entire time. He nodded to the man-at-arms who walked out onto the wall and strode into the tower. Suffering the semi-hardness of his member underneath his clothing, his countenance turned dour. He had no wish to further ruminate upon his liege lord’s sister, but his body obviously had plans of its own. His only consolation was his surety that one final coupling with Lady Constance would be enough to rid himself of this unwelcome lust for her. Once he had his fill his body would settle down, and he could put her from his mind for good.

  SEVEN