Song of the Highlands: The Cambels (The Medieval Highlanders)

by K. E. Saxon

  With effort he turned his gaze from her, allowed it to scan the chamber, allowed his mind to turn to the scent of rabbit stew in the pot o’er the hearthfire, to the sound of its bubbling juices, to the gnawing hunger in his belly, and took a step toward it, but stopped short when he realized she’d left the bath as well, along with a kettle of hot water to heat it up again. Aye. Aye. A bath, then a meal, then...bed. A hunger of a different sort set his groin to throbbing and he closed his eyes, closed his fists against it. Nay. Not yet. Not until he’d got his answers, got her oath that she’d not leave him. Then. Then. Aye, then.

  * * *

  Robert stood naked in the small wooden tub, his back to the bed. He would not test his mettle by giving his eyes easy access to Morgana’s form, not without at least one of them full-clothed. He scrubbed away the grime, scrubbed away the dried blood, scrubbed away the ache in his muscles from long hours of worry and riding, scrubbed away the feral desire for her until his skin was so fiery red it stung.

  A hand landed as light as a dove’s feather on his back, and a lightning bolt charge thrilled through his being, making him start. The touch—the connection—broke away, and he said hoarsely, “Nay!” as he turned and captured her arms, pulled her a step closer again. He reached over and lifted another washing cloth from the table, ne’er taking his gaze from hers, and handed it to her. “My back,” he said, tho’ it seemed as far off as the sea, with the sound of his blood pumping, his accelerated breathing, filling his ears instead. “Do you mind? I can’t reach.”

  Her cheeks flamed, and he could not ken why, but her soft lips tipped up in a gentle smile and she took the cloth from him, dipped it in the warm water in the basin on the table, lathered it with soap, while he turned so that she could do as he’d asked.

  Why did you leave me? His heart raced. “Wh—” He cleared his throat, waiting until she’d taken the first stroke down his skin before beginning again, “Wh—” He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  “Aye?”

  “The—” He cleared his throat again. “The song you sang in the carn. What was it?”

  “ ‘Twas one my mother sang to me as a wee lass. ‘Tis a song of the ancients—or so she told me. She learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, who learned it from her mother, and so on. And when ‘tis sung in that carn, I discovered when I played there as a bairn, it works some magic on others, and brings on the sleep of Morpheus.”

  Robert swung around, eyes wide. “That expl—” The cloth that had, only a moment before, been sliding across his back, now stroked his stomach, just a hair’s breadth, or so it seemed, from his groin. Blood filled him there, made him heavy, made his need for her rage. “Morgana,” he murmured, his voice rough. Without conscious thought, his desire became manifest when his arms went around her, lifted her to him, brought his mouth down upon her own, sent his tongue into the recesses there, to taste, to be fulfilled.

  * * *

  Morgana returned the kiss, stroke for stroke, pressure for pressure, rising up on her toes, sliding her arms about his neck, drawing him closer into her, drawing into him so tight that her breasts, her belly, her groin met answering points upon his frame.

  Desire, long smoldering, burst into flame. Of its own accord, her body writhed against his, her mons taunted and teased the underside of his raging manhood.

  When he swung her up into his arms without breaking the kiss, stepped from the tub, took a long stride toward the bed, she dug her nails into his shoulders and redoubled her kiss. Through her mind ran the words, o’er and o’er again: At last! At last!

  * * *

  When Robert reached the bedside, he turned and fell on his back upon it, taking the weight of Morgana’s lush form on him with unholy pleasure. Her long silken skeins of moonspun hair caressed his arms, his chest, his cheeks, as each of them continued to ravage the other’s mouth. Finally, his hands trembling with need, he combed his fingers through the mass, brought it away from her neck, and brushed his lips along the warm column of her throat, whispering hoarsely, “ ‘Tis been too long. Take me, for I fear I’ll maul and savage you otherwise.”

  She shook her head and whispered in his ear.

  His heart tripped, then pounded. “Are you sure?”

  She grinned against his neck and nodded.

  Drawing a stray strand of hair away from her face again, yet keeping his palm, his fingertips lightly touching her cheek and ear, he said against her mouth, “Next time. For now I want no bedposts between us. ‘Tis been too long since I held you, felt your body move against mine, enjoyed you.”

  Morgana surprised him then. She captured his mouth in a violent storm of a kiss, pushing her own hands through his hair as she did so, and stroking her naked torso o’er his own. His thighs went up in flames; his tarse lengthened, throbbed; his ballocks drew up high into their sack; his heart raced; and his urge to mate with her grew ten-fold. Still somehow, he managed not to fling her to her back and impale her with force and roughness his body screamed for him to do.

  He wanted gentleness for her, he wanted tenderness, he wanted to show her with his body how deeply he loved her, craved her for wife, not just for spending his passion upon. He’d nearly lost her, and meeting her, being wedded to her, was the best thing—the absolute best thing—that had e’er happened to him. Knowing that, realizing that, he would do aught he must to keep her bound to him with the strong, eternal bonds that, not merely desire, but love, could engender.

  Finally, blessedly, finally, she lifted up, encircled his tarse with her delicate hand and positioned the head of it at her portal, then in a slow glide, took him inside her.

  The intensity of the pleasure near eviscerated him. His body was in her full power, no longer his own. It arched, he cried out, his hands gripped her lush bottom and he erupted inside her on an extended, growling, body-bucking, moan.

  His head spun, but the pleasure continued to expand as she started to move on him. The slick, hot, tight grip of her kept him hard, kept him there with her. He raised his head, and brought her breast down to his mouth with a hand on the back of her neck and began to ravenously suckle, showing her with his mouth how much he needed the sustenance only she could provide him.

  She cried out her passion as if ‘twould rend her apart, moved upon him with e’er increasing strain and tempo, until they both were soaked with the sweat of their exertions, until at last her spine arched, her head went back, her cries turned to long, lovely moans, and he felt the walls of her canal undulate, gripping and releasing in rapid succession.

  He held tight to her nipple, licking, stroking, suckling, as she rose e’er higher on that crest, until he, himself, once more, and just as nearly always was the case with her, felt the high, chaotic waves of pleasure take him o’er again as well. In the next instant, they both stiffened, both yelled out the other’s name, both flew apart into millions of tiny bits of starlight, then both collapsed where they were into a deep, restful sleep.

  When he awoke some small time later, he looked at her, a mangle of emotion beating in his chest and placed a soft kiss on her brow. As he stroked his hand through her hair, he smiled. This time, they’d not only found heaven together, they’d found oblivion together as well. Another first.

  After a quiet, peaceful while, he finally let her go, rolling her gently off him, then rising from the bed. He went to the bucket, that now held tepid water and brought back a damp cloth, then cleansed her love-swollen folds with it before cleansing himself as well. Tossing the cloth toward the bucket, and satisfied when it landed directly inside it, he turned his attention once more to his wife’s comfort. He moved to the side of the bed, lifted her up and scooted her closer to the wall. In her sleep, she turned on her side and placed one hand under her cheek.

  He lay down on his back beside her, a portion of his large frame hanging o’er the edge of the narrow mattress, and tucked his arms under his head. Had he planted another babe in her? If he had…. No. Wife Deirdre had told him that Morgana was f
it, was ripe for bearing his son. That same image he’d had, of her holding their babe in her arms, not long after their first time together flitted across his memory and a funny little soaring feeling entered his heart. Aye, ‘twas truth, he desperately wanted another babe with her. More than one, in fact.

  Morgana stirred beside him, then rolled over to face him and he instinctively shifted into a more secure position on the bed and brought her closer against his side. She settled her hand on his chest and began to caress it, which made him look down at her. Slumberous and satiated, her blue eyes met his gaze.

  “What has your brow so furrowed after such a loving, I wonder? Surely, you were not left unsatisfied?” she asked, tho’ there was more humor than worry in her tone.

  With a growl he wrapped an arm around her and rolled on top of her. “Nay, tho’ ‘twas not I who swooned,” he lied, and for the life of him, he couldn’t say why. Unable to resist, he pushed his fingers into her silky, silver-moon hair, dragged her head back so that her neck was fully exposed, then clamped his mouth o’er the tender, sweet-salty flesh and gave it a long, sucking bite. He felt his tarse thicken, and evidently so did she, for she moaned and rotated her pelvis so that it pressed into his, teasing the proof of his desire for her with her dark curls.

  * * *

  As Robert’s mouth toyed with her neck, Morgana stroked her palm o’er his manhood and moaned deep in her throat. ‘Twas not until she heard the rush of her own shortened breaths that some semblance of reason returned, and she dragged her hand from him, pushed against his shoulders, saying, “Nay, not again. First you must restore your vigor with a bit of supper.”

  He startled her with a short chuckle and a grin. “What, pray, in this past hour, has given you the notion that my vigor is waning?” He moved again to capture her neck with his teeth, gripping her wrist and pulling it back toward his manhood, but she rolled away, taking her hand with her.

  “Nay. First food,” she said, “then loving, for I want some answers now.”

  Robert stiffened. His jaw went rigid, and so did his gaze. “Aye,” he said and left the bed, “as do I.”

  Morgana’s heart fluttered with alarm. Aye, ‘twas time, as well, for her to give to him the reasons she’d forsworn her vows to him. As they moved toward the table where she’d left a trencher for him to fill with stew, she opened her mouth and almost began to tell him all. Nay. She clamped her lips together. First, he would give her the answers she needed. She’d waited long enough, and asked, then begged, then demanded and been denied far too often. He must prove to her his willingness to respond with more than a brusque, “Later. After,” then she’d tell him what he desired to know.

  Once they’d both cleaned and clothed themselves in shirt or chemise, once they were settled on the bench, once she’d ladled a portion of the stew into the trencher, once she’d poured some ale into a cup for him, and once she’d watched him devour near all the trencher-full in no more than three bites (thus proving, in her own mind at least, that she’d been right about his need for sustenance), she said, “For how long did you know my father lives, and why did you not tell me?”

  His gaze met hers. From her periphery, she watched him finish chewing, watched his throat flex as he swallowed, watched him wipe his mouth on the cloth she’d provided, and waited, refusing to utter the words again.

  His eyes narrowed and he lifted his cup, taking in a long swallow, then slowly set it back atop the table. Finally, he said, “I’ve known since the day our babe flushed from your womb.”

  Anger boiled in her gut. “That long?”

  “I did not tell you because I feared you were not well, neither in the mind, or in the body.”

  Morgana would have loved to refute him, but knew all too well that he spoke the truth, so she said naught.

  “And later?”

  He scrubbed his hand o’er his chin. “Later...well, later….” He turned to more fully face her. “Morgana, ‘tis not only your father that survived that attack, your mother did as well. You know her as Modron, your lady’s maid.”

  Morgana gasped and leapt to her feet, taking several paces away from him. For long moments, she stood with her arms folded over her chest and stared blankly at the array of hunting knives that graced the wall of the cot. She felt cold inside. “She misled me,” she said at last.

  From behind her, she heard Robert rise from the bench and move toward her. “Only because”—She took another step away, needing to keep the distance between them—“she knew her only chance to succeed in finding evidence against your uncle, so that he could be punished for his crimes against your family, was to allow him to believe she’d perished in her attempt to escape Alaric Albinus’ clutches.”

  “And my father? Does she know he lives, or did you keep that knowledge from her as well?”

  She heard him clear his throat. “She was the one that revealed it to me.”

  Morgana shivered. Betrayed.

  “But, by then we knew that Donnach wanted you dead, and our best means of exposing his crimes was to keep you safe in your chamber, and keep the fact of your mother and father’s surviving the attack a well-guarded secret.”

  She’d stopped listening. Betrayed. The word kept repeating in her head. Her mother, her father, her cousin, her uncle, her husband. They’d all betrayed her. From far off came the sound of Robert’s voice. He was saying her name and it brought her from her thoughts.

  “...there was a plot against your life. Morgana... Blood of Christ, Morgana, they poisoned you, killed our babe! I should have protected you. I failed.”

  Poisoned. Killed our babe. She felt lightheaded and took in a sustaining breath to keep from swooning. She swiveled and strode past him back to the bench. He followed.

  In silence, she poured another cupful of ale for him, filled his trencher with more stew. As he ate, she pondered all she’d learned. Her uncle’s minions—the ones that had seized her—were the cause of her losing her babe. ‘Twas not her fault, as she’d feared. And ‘twas not Robert’s either, tho’ clearly he felt he was to blame. Lifting her eye to his profile, she recalled his words, and listened with new ears to the reasons he’d given her for his betrayal of her trust. After losing her babe, she had been heartsick, she had had spells. If it had been he who was in such a state, would she have told him of the danger? Taunted fortune, and revealed Modrun and the tinker’s true identities? Nay, she knew she would not have done so.

  “They killed our babe, Robert.” She pounded her fist down on the table. “I hate my uncle! I hate those men!” She flung herself up from the stool and stormed toward the wall of knives, her arms folded tight over her chest, her eyes blindly staring into the distance.

  “I know, love, I hate them too.”

  Her head bent, her eyes filled with anguished tears. “I didn’t before,” she murmured, “but I do now.” Her shoulders quaked and she covered her face with her hands. “God will punish me for such a sin, but truly, I cannot help it.”

  A warm wall of comfort spread behind her and strong hands settled on her shoulders.

  “Nay, he will not,” Robert soothed. “I cannot—I will not—believe it. They are the devil’s minions, and you—you and our babe—are the innocents.”

  She turned in his arms and he held her close. After a quiet moment, he led her back to the table and he resumed his meal.

  “Why did you not tell me that Grímr is the father of Vika’s babe?” she asked into the silence.

  He looked up at her, his eyes skimming her countenance. Evidently deciding she’d recovered enough from the earlier blow, he said plainly, and with a thread of accusation running through his tone, “Because I discovered the truth after you’d bolted.”

  Morgana remained still, but inside she squirmed. “I...see.” She dropped her gaze to the trencher. “Finish your meal, it grows cold.”

  Robert surprised her then, reaching out and covering her hand with his. “How could you e’er believe I love Vika?”

  “Because you be
lieved—I believed—I was mad.” She peeked up at him, but then dropped her gaze once more, unable to retain the courage. “But I am not mad. I thought I was, but...once my memory returned I realized my swoons, my visions, were merely antecedents to my remembrance of my past and all that happened.”

  “Aye, I know. You are far from mad. And you are not as fragile as I once believed you to be, either.”

  Her spine straightened and her chin went up. “Aye, I am not. ‘Tis glad I am that you have at last realized such.”

  With a grin, he tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. He leaned in and dropped a soft kiss on her lips then drew back a fraction, enough to capture her gaze, and murmured, “Know this: ‘Tis you, and you alone, who holds my heart. I love you, Morgana.”

  Humiliatingly, her eyes misted. “Truly?”

  She wanted so desperately to release her burgeoning joy in a flood of tears, but she fought them back. Still, her nose grew damp, and she was forced to sniffle. Robert wrapped his arm around her shoulder, drew her into his side, settled his cheek on the crown of her head, and pressed the cloth to her nose, saying, “Blow,” and as she obeyed, she felt the weight of his lips on her forehead, and knew, no matter what else might be revealed this night, their hearts and lives were irrevocably bound for e’er more.

  EPILOGUE

  The Highlands, Scotland

  The MacVie Holding, Yule 1207

  THE SMALL MACVIE chapel was cast in a citrine glow that eve by the flickering of a hundred taper flames. Finely made tapers of beeswax, with a series of swirls and fleurons upon their bases that framed an illumined gold leaf letter C, had been sent as a gift from King William for the couple, and had arrived only this day past. The sweet honeyed scent of them pervaded the chamber, brought a smile to Morgana’s lips.

  The couple kneeled at the altar, heads bowed, hands clasped in front of them in prayer, as the priest began to recite, “Concede, quaesumus, omnipotens Deus….” Through the bride’s lilac-hued gossamer veil, Morgana surreptitiously admired the unbound golden brown hair that fell past the lady’s waist. Even now, five moons later, she could not fathom how easily guiled she’d been by her lovely, still youthful, mother’s disguise.