So Great A Love

by Speer, Flora

  Isabel was no fool; her sharp eyes were searching Margaret's face and her gaze rested on Margaret's misty eyes. Isabel responded to the moment with healing laughter.

  “ Ah, la, Margaret, you are blushing,” she teased. “You are thinking of the strong young man who will take you into his arms tomorrow night, are you not? But you have been married before, so you will not require instruction in the bedroom arts.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Margaret said, hoping Catherine would hold her peace and not mention to Isabel just how old Lord Pendance had been. But Isabel's humor had produced the intended reaction. Margaret no longer felt like weeping over the unexpected kindnesses of new friends. She was ready to deal with practical matters again, and she gave her full attention to what Isabel was saying.

  Isabel's idea was to lengthen the wedding gown by sewing a wide strip of glittering silver brocade along the hem. The brocade was stiffer than the silk of the dress and once basted into place it made the skirt stand out at the bottom in graceful folds that rippled when Margaret walked. Laure suggested using leftover pieces of the brocade to edge and line the sleeves, so they would bell out over the tighter sleeves of the linen underdress Margaret would wear beneath the gown.

  “It will be beautiful,” Aldis said. “Laure, I am a fair seamstress. Let me help, too. It won't take so long to finish with both of us sewing, and I would like to do this for Margaret.”

  While Aldis and the maid set to work in the solar with plenty of candles to provide the light they needed, Catherine and Isabel escorted Margaret to the bathhouse. After she was bathed and shampooed to their liking, they took her back to Catherine's room. There Margaret spent a mostly sleepless night in the too-narrow bed she was sharing with Catherine. During the quiet hours after midnight she had time to think in practical, realistic terms, to consider how to deal with a bridegroom who had clearly and publicly stated that he did not want to marry.

  With her father threatening warfare against Arden and Royce, a threat Margaret was certain her enraged parent would carry out with as much bloodshed and destruction as possible, she could think of no way to relieve Arden of the burden of an unwanted wife. Besides, the terms of the contract were settled. All she could do now was vow to heaven and to herself to be a good wife to Arden, and pray he would in time find some measure of contentment with the wife who loved him.

  For, Margaret admitted to herself in the darkest hour of the night, she who had once cringed at the thought of a man's hands upon her body was a most willing bride. Arden was different from all other men. His slightest touch thrilled her, exorcising every trace of her previous revulsion. Indeed, since the night when Arden had caressed her into a state of intoxicated passion, proving how much secular life had to offer, Margaret had not really wanted to join a convent. She would gladly have done so for Arden's sake, but not for her own.

  Not until shortly before the midmorning wedding ceremony did Margaret finally put on the altered green gown. She could judge her own appearance only in bits and pieces as Catherine moved her small hand mirror around to give glimpses of her attire, while Isabel kept up an excited chatter that Margaret suspected was meant to distract the bride from pre-nuptial nervousness.

  “I like the effect so well that I may have Laure modify my best red gown in the same way, using a piece of blue and gold brocade Tristan has given me,” Isabel said, her head tilted to one side while she looked Margaret over from the crown of her head to her toes. “Of course, it does help if one is as tall and graceful as you are. Then any style looks attractive.”

  Aldis braided Margaret's hair and pinned it into a knot at the back of her neck. This arrangement was topped by a sheer silver gauze veil that just barely reached Margaret's shoulders. The veil was held in place by a narrow gold circlet that sat low on her brow, a circlet provided by Sir Wace at Catherine's request. According to Wace, the circlet had belonged to his late wife and he was honored to lend it to Margaret.

  Catherine was wearing a bright blue gown, also taken from Isabel's trunks, but not requiring alteration, since Catherine was only an inch or two taller than Isabel. Aldis was in a rich shade of red and Isabel herself was in forest green silk, worn with the waist lacings loosely tied to accommodate her rounded abdomen. Even Laure was gowned in silk, in a lovely shade of russet-brown.

  Once Margaret was prepared she put her serious, deep-night thoughts behind her, save for her resolution to be the best wife she could possibly be to Arden. With her attendants chattering and fussing over the details of each other's costumes as cheerfully as if the occasion were a normal wedding, Margaret discovered her earlier nervousness had disappeared. She went calmly down the few steps from the solar to the great hall, where she found Arden awaiting her.

  He stared at her for so long that Margaret began to worry lest he might have changed his mind about wedding her. When Arden put out his hand, she placed her own into it and felt his fingers curling around hers in a warm grasp.

  “How very beautiful you are,” he said. He lifted her hand to his lips, then transferred it to his arm, keeping his own hand over it, as if to offer his strength to her.

  “I expected my father to lead me to the chapel,” Margaret said.

  “Neither Phelan, nor Eustace, will ever touch you again,” Arden told her, his fingers tightening on hers. “I will not allow it. Are you ready, my lady?” His voice and face were grave.

  “Yes, my lord, I am.” She took a long, slow breath. Arden looked into her eyes and the last of her doubts evaporated like morning dew in bright sunshine.

  With Catherine and Isabel preceding them and Aldis and Laure following, Margaret and Arden walked into the entry hall and thence to the chapel. Royce, Tristan, and Sir Wace were already there, with Phelan and Eustace standing a little apart from them. Margaret noticed Arden's squire, Michael, Guy the man-at-arms, and a few of Arden's other men who had come to Bowen with Tristan.

  When the bride and groom and all the witnesses were assembled, Father Aymon read aloud the simple contract, which transferred to Lord Phelan a large plot of land near Sutton Castle in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage. Margaret was surprised to hear there was no dowry involved. Even more startling was the clause that came at the very end of the contract.

  “In the event of the death of Arden of Bowen,” Father Aymon read, “the guardianship of his widow, Lady Margaret, and of any children of their union shall pass solely to Royce, the baron of Wortham, who has sworn to undertake their care and protection.”

  Margaret gasped and looked at Arden. He was staring straight ahead at the crucifix hanging over the chapel altar and was paying no attention to her or to anyone else. So absorbed was Arden in his meditation that Margaret wasn't sure he was aware of what Father Aymon had just said.

  Then she looked at Royce, who smiled at her, and she understood the two of them, father and son together, had taken care for her so that, no matter what happened in the future, she could never again be sent back to Sutton, there to be subject to her father or her brother, to be a victim of their schemes.

  It was the most wonderful wedding gift they could have given her. When Father Aymon was finished reading, Margaret took up the quill and signed her name on the contract with steady fingers and a heart filled with gratitude. Then she put her hand in Arden's and went with him to kneel on the altar steps while the priest blessed their union. She was so grateful, and so relieved to be Arden's property and no longer her father's chattel, that she did not even wonder why Father Aymon did not celebrate the Holy Mass.

  * * * * *

  “Well,” said Phelan, quaffing yet another cup of Arden's finest wine and looking around the great hall at those who were enjoying the wedding feast, “it's over, Eustace. We've rid ourselves of our troublesome Margaret, we've won against the mighty Royce of Wortham and his high-principled son, and we've come away with a handsome profit in the tract of land I made them give to me. You will note I now hold the property in fief from King Henry, and thus I have a direct connection
with him. That arrangement should prove useful in the future.”

  “Aye,” Eustace agreed, grinning. “All we have left to do is see the newlyweds bedded, so the contract is made fully legal. Now, there's a mating I'd like to watch – my skinny, cold-blooded nun of a sister, and that finer-than-thou knight. How will they manage it, I wonder?”

  “In the usual way,” Phelan said, “and, no doubt, as quickly as possible, to have it over and done with so they can go back to their prayers.”

  Eustace's guffaw at his father's joke drew a disapproving look from Arden.

  “At first light tomorrow,” Arden muttered to Royce, “I care not how queasy their bellies are from all the wine they've consumed, off those two go, back to Sutton or to the devil, whichever they choose, and I hope never to see either of them again.”

  “I will do all I can to speed them on their way,” Royce promised, “for I do not expect to see you out of bed early tomorrow.”

  “I intend to be in the hall, fully dressed with my sword girded on, to bid farewell to them,” Arden said.

  “That I very much doubt,” Tristan remarked with a knowing smile for his friend. “Surely you remember, Arden, how on the morning after our wedding, Isabel and I did not rise until midday. I suggest you leave the departure of your new in-laws to your father and me.”

  “Come, now Margaret,” Isabel said, interrupting her husband's comments with a teasing laugh. “It is time for your ladies to prepare you to receive your new husband.”

  Isabel caught one of Margaret's hands, Catherine took the other, and together with Aldis they drew her from her place at the high table, where she had been sitting between Arden and Royce, and led her to the solar. Seeing what was happening Laure also rose from her seat at one of the lower tables, running after the other women in her eagerness to attend the new bride.

  “Well, then, Arden,” Phelan yelled, leaning forward to see down the length of the table, “while the ladies prepare Margaret, your friends and relatives will see to it that you are ready to do your duty by my daughter.”

  “That's right,” Eustace said, waving his winecup in the air so enthusiastically that he spilled half its contents. “I say, we take the bridegroom to the lord's chamber and strip him naked, just to be sure he has all his manly parts.”

  “And I say, if you take one step toward the lord's chamber, you are a dead man.” Arden's voice was quiet, and so cold it cut through Eustace's wine-induced certainty that he and his father held the upper hand about the wedding and the festivities following it.

  “There is no need for a public bedding,” Arden said. “I will go to my wife by myself.”

  “Well, you see, that's just the trouble,” Phelan told him. “You are so unwilling a bridegroom that we want to be sure the marriage is consummated, so you can't send that stupid creature back to us later.”

  “I give you my solemn word, Margaret will never be returned to your care,” Arden said.

  “Still,” Eustace objected, “just to be sure, we'd like to see the two of you in bed together, and the dirty sheets in the morning. It's too bad Margaret isn't a virgin, so we can't be absolutely certain you've done your duty by us.” He favored Arden with a knowing grin that only slowly faded as Arden's next words sank into his wine-befuddled mind.

  “Do you doubt my word?” Arden rose, towering over Eustace. “You, who have accused me of getting Margaret with child, now dare to question whether the marriage will be consummated? Either you were lying beforehand, or you are speaking falsely now. Which is it, Eustace? You cannot have both.”

  “Under these unusual circumstances,” Royce spoke up in a manner aimed at stopping the incipient quarrel before it escalated, “let us rely upon the two parties most involved to do the right thing. Arden, may I suggest, it is time for you to join your bride, while Phelan and I stay here in the hall to see to the continuation of the feast? I promise you, the lord's chamber will remain inviolate for the entire night.”

  Arden knew his father meant well. If Arden were, in truth, about to take possession of his new wife, he would have been glad of his father's intervention. Royce's understanding smile and the warm twinkle in his eyes nearly destroyed the emotional barriers Arden was keeping in place with ever-increasing difficulty. He longed to unburden himself of years of blood guilt, to tell his father everything. But he must wait, at least until the morrow, and perhaps longer.

  “Thank you, Father,” was all Arden could trust himself to say. Leaving the dais he headed toward the solar and the lord's chamber beyond, knowing he was about to betray the two people who were dearest to him in all the world, for his father believed he would perform a bridegroom's duty and Margaret—

  Margaret. Arden paused at the top of the steps leading from great hall to solar. The door of the lord's chamber had been left open a crack and a band of light projected by the candles within stretched across the solar floor, extending from the doorway to Arden's feet. A path of light, leading to his heart's desire. It was a path he could not take, for the sake of his shattered honor and to keep Margaret safe from him and from the bleak future he would face once he had spoken to his father.

  But to keep her safe from Phelan and Eustace, Arden would have to pretend to tread the path to his bedchamber, to his bed, and to Margaret's body, as if he were a true bridegroom. He was forced to make a sham of her wedding night, in the same way he had made a lie of his life in recent years.

  He told himself that what he was doing was solely for Margaret's sake, though he knew even as he formulated the thought that it was the greatest lie of all. He placed one booted foot into the band of light on the floor, breaking the clean, sharp-edged pattern of it, and then he walked the rest of the way to the lord's chamber and pushed open the door.

  The women noticed him at once and drew back, letting him see Margaret as they had prepared her for him, using nightclothes that surely belonged to Isabel.

  She was wearing a sheer, sleeveless white linen shift, with a dark blue, open-front silk robe draped over her shoulders. Both shift and robe were much too short. Yet the delicate wrists and long-fingered hands that extended from the sleeves of the robe, and the ankles and white feet beneath the hem of the shift, combined to give to Margaret's tall figure an air of vulnerability she did not ordinarily display. Her hair was unbound and her ladies had brushed it until it swung in a shiny black river over her shoulders and down her back to below her waist.

  All of it was for him, for his delight. And all of it was for naught. Still, when Margaret turned her huge, silver-gray eyes on him, the shudder that shook Arden went deep into his ice-encased heart as well as through his body. He took a deep breath to steady himself, only to find his senses assaulted by Margaret's flowery perfume.

  “ Ah,la, Margaret,” said Isabel, teasing as usual, “here is your husband, come to claim you for his own, and he appears to be most impressed by our preparations. But, Arden, where are the others?”

  “Below, in the hall, kept there by my father, at my insistence,” Arden said. “They are all still enjoying the feast.”

  “In that case, I think the three of us ought to join them.” Isabel kissed Margaret on both cheeks. She would have kissed Arden, too, but she was too short to reach his cheek and Arden did not bend to her. Isabel contented herself with a pat on his stiffly held shoulder. “Be kind to your wife, Arden. She will make you happy, if only you will allow her to do so.

  “Come along, Laure, do not dawdle.” Isabel shooed her maid out of the room when she would have hung back on the chance of observing something interesting.

  Catherine also embraced Margaret, holding her tight for a moment. Then she went to Arden, and her kiss he permitted, bending down to let her touch her lips to his cheek. But when Aldis, having also kissed Margaret, came to him, Arden stood stiffly, rejecting her kiss, refusing to acknowledge the hurt look on his cousin's face.

  At last the bedchamber door was closed and Arden and his bride were alone for a long, quiet moment.

  “I am s
urprised to my father and Eustace did not demand to see us properly bedded,” Margaret said, breaking the silence.

  “I have told you, neither of those men will ever again be allowed to touch you,” Arden said. “Neither will I permit them to enter my most private chamber, to whet their salacious fantasies on the sight of you, naked in my bed.

  “Margaret,” Arden went on, taking a step toward her, “we have much of importance to discuss. Our wedding happened so quickly that we've had no time to talk, to settle certain matters between ourselves.”

  “Bowen will be a quieter place after my father and his party leave,” Margaret said. “Then you and I will be able to speak together for as long as we please, and you may hold that very private conversation with your father, the one you have been forced several times to postpone.”

  As she spoke Margaret slipped off the blue silk robe and laid it at the foot of the bed, so she was left wearing only the sheer linen shift that veiled and yet revealed every soft contour of her figure. She took her time about carefully folding the robe. She did not look at Arden, and her hands were shaking just the slightest bit.

  Arden could recall seeing marble statues in Eastern lands, human forms created out of stone by the great sculptors of ancient times. Not one of those statues compared to the living, breathing wonder that was Margaret. No marble, however smoothly polished, had ever tempted him to touch it as he was tempted by the flawless white skin he could just glimpse beneath the linen. It took all of his considerable willpower to make himself speak as he must.

  “What I have to say to you will not wait until tomorrow,” he told her.

  “Speak, then,” Margaret said, still not looking directly at him.

  The words were on his tongue. Arden had every intention of uttering them, so that Margaret would want to stay away from him, would never want to be alone with him or touch him again. But she turned from the bed, the blue robe finally arranged to her satisfaction, and she came forward, into the full candlelight again and out of the partial shadow cast by the bedcurtains.