by Anne Carsley
They lay in their bower one night after love had had its bright sway, Julian holding Charles in her arms, his head on her breast, both shivering in anticipation of the thrustings and hunger to come, and he said so softly that she had to bend closer to hear, “I think the gods are jealous, lady mine. They are truer than the God of the present faith, for man has ever worshiped himself.”
“Do not speak so!” She stopped his cynical mouth with her own and, as his hands rose to caress her breasts, knew that she feared the inevitable end of the days of the kingfisher.
CHAPTER FORTY
Julian and Charles sat side by side in the early summer sun on the outdoor benches of the tavern which had a great deal of custom even so early in the morning. Their informant had plainly been there all night and was quick to respond to Julian’s remark about the scent. Now they looked sickly at each other and away. This was no place to visit later with the gypsies, mumming and juggling, singing a fine tune for coins as they had done so successfully in the past months.
The scent of burned flesh still hung over the marketplace at Edington although the tailor had gone to his death over a week ago, his neighbors standing by while the soldiers held them at bay. “Grew up here he did, had three sons and all in the armies of Philip, whom God destroy. He wouldn’t have truck with the mass or the saints and said so openly. Called it heresy, talked as we all do and now . . . how did they know? Why did it happen to him?” The little man’s beard almost drooped in his beer.
“After it was over and the soldiers ready to leave with the priest, that black scarecrow, they saw the pictures of the queen as a harlot and a witch that somebody put up. Tore ’em down, they did, and threatened to be back.” He drank deeply, tears springing to his eyes.
The burly man who had furnished their ale was coming up now and murmuring to the little man. They caught a few words. . . home and sleep . . . not safe . . . quiet. . Moments later he staggered away, muttering to himself and wiping his beard. The host shrugged and said, “Drinks all the time and has for years. It’ll kill him one day.” The dark eyes sharpened. “Going far?”
Charles looked at Julian, who lowered her eyes and glanced away in the ruse they always used in these forays. He grinned and said, “Pilgrimage to Salisbury. Our priest suggested it since we want a boy. Two girls in the house already is enough, I say.” Julian jerked at his sleeve. “Just one more ale, sir.”
The host relaxed. “These are hard times, but a man must have a son.” He moved away with only one backward glance. No business of his, of course, but why would a woman let her skin get so dark from the sun? Walking a great deal, no doubt.
Julian’s flesh prickled; even the villages were dangerous, and no person was safe. They had encountered this sort of thing before, the kind of denouncing that neighbor did to neighbor under the sanction of religion. Hunger was rampant in the land and beggars multiplied despite the fair weather and warmth. Tax collectors were everywhere and pitched battles were not uncommon. Bitterness, hatred, and anger flourished; the stranger was often unsafe unless he were very careful. England was bleeding to death on the altar of Philip’s wars and the queen’s growing despair coupled with her determination to punish those who would not turn to the Catholic fold.
“Julian, the time is even more ripe for revolt if we are to have a country left. Those who live must take the responsibility.” Charles paced beside her as they took the road out of the dangerous town, the one they had hoped would provide their supper that night. Now all that mattered was leaving as soon as possible. “I must do something or I cannot live with myself.”
“What can you do? One man?” She stretched out her hand to him, sighing at the brownness of it. The berry juice Armita applied to render her a country woman worked only too well; she might never be white again. “Sedril’s kinsman we met that time said that soldiers frequent Cornwall and all is quiet.”
“Nonetheless, I should go. There are meeting places and crannies that no one who had not lived there could ever find.” He swung her hand absently and dropped it, then turned to face her. “The thing is, Julian, I have taken pleasure in this wandering life and with you. Birds of the field with no thought for the realities of the world.”
So had she. Ah, how sweet those nights and their passion. The shared laughter at her brown-tinged face atop the white body when they made love, the light dresses of red and green so easily doffed in the shade of the greenwood when they loved or swam, camaraderie with Armita and Tasa, grave friendship with Yarno and Sedril, the nights when they sat around the low fire and told tales of other times and places, the way they had put together little plays to give in the marketplaces or on the edge of the safe villages for their daily bread. So much of love and companionship in these months. Were these not the realities of the world as well? She opened her mouth to coerce him and saw again the sternness that had well nigh left his face in these seconds of memory that touched them now return.
“What will you do, Charles?” She let go because she must. For all that they shared, he still was not hers nor, he was forced to admit, could she fully commit herself to his love that was so strong. Lovers, part of her life, yes; but marriage was not for him—had he not stated it? And yet, watching Tasa and the love her parents shared, it was difficult not to dream of Redeswan or Varfair and children in his image. She had not spoken of love again to him, but their flesh hymned it in the flower-scented nights.
The gray eyes flashed against sun-bronzed skin, his teeth bone white as he smiled with no amusement. “I shall seek out the princess and tell her what goes on in this land to which she is the guardian of the future, tell her that if she will sanction an uprising with sword and token, the country will be hers before the next dawn. But if she tarries much longer there will be only destruction, and England will be a province of Spain even more than she is now. The queen has been rumored dying so often that she may live on for years while our people suffer.”
Julian felt the familiar pang at the thought of the queen, who had after all been kind to her and hers in the days of bitterness. She stood very still in the dusty track with the sun beating down on her unprotected head. Two horsemen swerved around them to kick up a fine screen of dust. Several women worked in the field opposite, the sound of their chatter mingling with the cries of children at play. Her instinct for danger rose up clearly and with it anger that he would jeopardize himself again.
“They say that she is kept secluded, almost a prisoner. How could you manage it? What makes you think she would listen to you? She is cautious and careful, the rumors say. Charles, let it go, I pray you.”
“I must do my duty as I see it. She cannot really know what is going on.” He began walking so swiftly that she had to rush to keep up with him.
“She can lose her life if the attempt fails.” She did not add that Charles Varland would surely die also.
He stopped and faced her earnestly. “How can I make you see what Elizabeth Tudor means to this country, Julian? Young King Edward was reared a fanatical Protestant, and his advisors ruled that way in his name. You suffered, you should know. Mary is just as determined to bring England back to the Catholic faith by whatever means. We are torn apart, fighting a losing war, our Calais bastion gone, the Inquisition a possibility if Philip claims this throne, persecution on every side, and people killed for the slightest wrong word. No person is safe, no life truly worth living. Elizabeth is Protestant but has been trained in the ways of reason. King Henry and Anne Boleyn were utterly English; their daughter will have no foreign ties. She is England’s hope and there is no other. She has survived much imprisonment and suspicion. I know that King Philip counts her shrewd and fair.”
Julian smiled. “I did not know you to be so fervent for a woman, my lord.”
“She is our last hope.” Charles sighed and took Julian’s hand. “You must stay with the gypsies. You will be as safe there as anywhere, and the few jewels we have saved will give you something to fall back on. Do not think me ungrateful for all tha
t you have done, Julian, but I am a peer of this land, and I do what I must.”
“You cannot go alone.”
“I must.” He began to walk again and she matched her stride to his.
“I go with you and I think the others will also.” The decision was never in doubt as far as she was concerned, and it was the right one. Loving him as she did, she had to remain with him and fight by his side so long as fate allowed it. She would not wait meekly by, and so long as he was determined, there was a better chance of success in the company of others, especially when that company was well used to acting and ever cognizant of danger. Rulers might be the same, but love came only once to Julian Redenter.
Charles moved in front of her and looked down into her resolute face, the brilliant eyes seeming to dominate it. “But why? You have no true stake in this.”
She spoke the simple truth. “The wise woman said we were bound together, Charles, and it seems to be so. I care for you and wish you well. If you are successful, the new queen will be grateful.”
“I must think on it.” He said no more, and now they walked apart.
Later, Julian told Armita what had happened in the village and watched the smooth face grow somber. “I think we will go into the Welsh country in the winter as others of our people have done. There is no safety in this land. Will you come with us, you and Ned?”
Julian hung the daisy chain she had been making for Tasa around the child’s neck and returned the hug with full measure. It seemed a kind of betrayal of these people to offer them to Charles as she had. Once again the anger shook her. Alive and free in the summer sweetness, the crags of the Welshland waiting, friendship and the warmth of human closeness—not her world of books, inner vistas, and the pride of Redenters, but a new life that was now curiously beckoning.
“It may well be that I will come with you if I am truly welcome.” The hands playing with Tasa’s dark curls shook suddenly, and the little girl froze in her lap.
Armita said, “You are welcome always, dear sister. Alone or with Ned.” It was like her that she said no more, but began to talk of the rabbits on which they would dine and the fresh berries she and Tasa picked while they waited.
Julian knew, as perhaps she had always known, that the gypsies had not wholly believed their story and yet had accepted them. It was time for honesty. Her old fear of commitment strengthened her resolve to free herself of this drugging passion that would ruin her as it had her mother and her queen.
That night she put on one of the long soft gowns that Armita still carried in memory of the days when it was safer to be a gypsy and had loaned to Julian. This one was the pale green of the foaming sea at dawn. A belt of silvered cord went with it, and there were dangling earrings which might have contained some fragments of silver. The chestnut hair was swept high over her temples and tumbled down her back in a profusion of softness. The sleeves of the gown came over her elbows and fell in points to her fingertips. She had only the tiny mirror of polished steel to tell her that she was fair, but all her woman’s instincts knew it.
The woman of another was sacrosanct, but the brief flicker in the men’s eyes told Julian much. Only Charles did not react; he saw Julian Redenter, whose family had been one of England’s bulwarks in past times and who now challenged him to speak or that she would. He himself wore the cloth of coarse weave in brown that attracted little attention in their wanderings, but as he tilted his head up at her from his place at the banked fire, he had never been more the noble lord. Even his bearing was different. Her flesh trembled at the sight of him, and her mind wept that their days together were numbered.
His voice pulled her back as he said, “My friends, there is something of which we must speak. Listen, I pray you, and do not judge us too harshly. . .”
As the tale began Armita’s eyes went to Julian, and the girl nodded. The gypsy’s face was otherwise expressionless and shuttered. Was this hope of sanctuary to be shut out as well because of the lies it had been necessary to tell?
The moon dipped down, an owl called from the depths of the greenwood, and the fresh scents of deep night grew as Charles spoke, telling the bare facts of his life and that of Julian’s. He put no rhetoric, no golden spangles into it but told of a man and woman, their consciences and the forces of destiny over which they had no control, and finally of his belief that a person must do what he or she could, however little, to accomplish what was thought to be right. “It can be no other way for me, no other path. We want simply to live in peace and follow our lives to the end without being torn apart for beliefs of any sort. This affects us all, and I believe the Princess Elizabeth to be strong enough to do something about it.”
He let his voice die away, and the only sound was the breeze rustling in the branches to stir a sleepy bird awake. Julian looked at the others, Yarno and Sedril, their faces unreadable, Armita with her eyes downcast, and thought that Charles had been most truly eloquent this night. She who loved and slept with him had not known so much of the passion that drove him, the iron determination to duty that went beyond the demands of self and was yet most firmly rooted there. We are not so different, he and I! The thought rang in her head, and she knew that she could not undermine his cause with her own belief in the basic uncaring quality of rulers.
“And you, Julian, how do you feel?” It was the usually silent Yarno, who used her true name in the same easy way he had used her false one.
“It is dangerous, but if the plan succeeds we can claim help from the princess when she rules, and I do not think she would forget those who alerted her to the true condition of the country. We are in flight now and can be so again. I stand with Charles in this.” She would not soon forget the blaze of gratitude in the look he turned on her there in the flickering light where destiny was met. “We ask your help if you will give it, and we understand if you cannot.”
“We will think on it. . . .” Sedril started to rise, then sank back as Armita spoke sharply in the Romany language.
Seconds later Armita said in English, “I speak for us all to our friends. We, too, have been persecuted in these last years for no more than being born what we are. Our kinsmen recently dead and we flying before the soldiers. We will help in this because we must do something. Something.” The word hung on the air like a drawn sword.
Charles reached out his hand and clasped hers. Yarno and Sedril put theirs down as well and Julian capped them all. Sedril said, “To the princess of England!”
“Whom God assoil!” Charles breathed the words fervently and so the quest was begun.
They were drained of words and emotion as they lay on the cloaks under a flowering bush an hour later. The air was so warm, it seemed almost liquid to Julian’s skin, and the sweet scents wrapped her in honey. Charles held her to him, but he had not invoked their special magic and she did not seek it. For this little moment the tenderness was paramount; both were thankful for it.
His lips found her shoulder and he whispered, “Julian, lady mine, I am glad that you are with me in this.”
Because without you my life will be dull and devoid of meaning. Such words were not for the pride of Julian Redenter. Hunger surged up in her suddenly. She wanted all that she could have, because life might not extend beyond the next breath. “Love me, Charles, take me. Let me have you.” She spoke the words in such an uprush of passion that his manhood enlarged strongly against her bare legs. Her hands found it quickly and began to stroke.
Their nest under the bush was so secure that Julian felt no compunction about giving way to the urgency that infected both Charles and herself. It was as if they lay in a separate world of flowers and softness, away from the terrors of which they had spoken shortly before. Now she turned on her side in accordance with his hands, her smooth buttocks against his skin. He held her firmly while his shaft glided deep into the corridor of her womanhood. One hand touched the quivering mound and ignited it so that she seemed to melt into one great fiery glow of molten liquid. She moaned faintly as the longing t
hat seemed part of this power wound through her heart and mind. Charles whispered her name over and over as if it were a litany as she writhed in his grip while the thrusting continued until she was filled with it, and the great sea flowed upward into a crashing wave.
When she mounted him and began to touch the collapsed spear of his flesh, Charles said, “Ah, you have drained me, lovely one. I am the prisoner of your flesh.” His smile flickered white in the darkness, and he saw the white flowers of the bush behind her chestnut head. One hand rose to touch the bobbing breasts that bore the marks of his hands in the time just past. The nipples were tiny roses on the white of her skin.
“Is it so, my lord? Then as my prisoner, I command that you rise, for I see that you are drained no longer.” Her mouth went forward and began to draw on the uplifted stalk, softly at first and then harder as she demanded with tongue and hands. Charles quivered all over his muscular body and felt the dew drench of sweat on her back.
Julian leaned away from him and said, “Once more, once more. Let me feel you inside me.”
Inflamed, he caught at her, lifted her buttocks and poised them above him, then gently drew her down on him but holding her away so that they could look into each other’s faces at the same time that the strokes progressed. They saw the stamp of passion, the eagerness beyond the body, and that ineffable something that floated out of reach for all the many ways they sought it. Julian felt him go deeper in her to penetrate crevices yet unknown and loose the rivers that flowed molten hot to the mountain whose slopes were eternal fire. He withdrew to the very tip, then pulled her to him as he hammered home one final thrust that sent them both down into the mountain’s core. Their voices called together in one lost cry before everything except sensation lost meaning and they twined into one being.