Truly, Madly, Deeply

by Romantic Novelist's Association

  Emerging from the Metro the following morning, the warmth hits her. It’s 22 or 23 degrees which is normal for late spring. Knowing what to expect, she is dressed in linen trousers and good quality cotton T-shirt unlike many of the sweating, overdressed tourists who are arriving from the airport.

  She makes for the coffee shop adjacent to departure gate E8 and queues.

  ‘I’m worn out,’ says the woman directly in front of Polly.

  Her companion, a woman with white hair and bright pink lipstick, looks alarmed. ‘We’ve only just got here.’

  ‘And my feet have swollen.’ The woman points to her unsuitable leather shoes. ‘See.’

  Polly has some sympathy. She remembers the early years of her annual pilgrimages. The decision to go, but where? What to wear? What to pack? How to live without Dan? The unknown is tiring and mistakes are made.

  Coffee in hand, she moves off to join the queue for the ferry –and spots that the handsome local hustler dressed up in a fake uniform is back in business. She watches him size up an affluent looking older couple with copious amounts of luggage and slip into his routine. He is so charming. So persuasive. Within minutes, they will allow him to carry their bags to the head of the impatient queue…’the captain would wish it’. Only then, would he demand a hefty tip.

  She listens to the subsequent row, which she can rehearse, almost word for word. Should she have intervened? Perhaps she should have done. Yet, the most useful experience is the most hard-won and Piraeus is a tough, chaotic place.

  The queue moves forward. Embarked, Polly will head forward, which allows her to manoeuvre between sun and shade, her book for the trip easily accessible in a rucksack pocket. This year it is Anna Karenina, and she anticipates biting down on Tolstoy’s combination of story and philosophy. The idea of reading only one book on her travels is to ensure that its text becomes second nature. In this way, she has tackled seven classics, each one soldered imaginatively to the place she read them. Great Expectations is Rhodes. A Portrait of a Lady is Crete.

  At the front of the ferry, she would watch the sea, with a touch of heat haze layering above it. At Skopolos the ferry would lumber into its berth with the usual noise of arrival in any port. Then, she would search for a bed and breakfast. Check for insects. Check the water ran properly. Check for an extra blanket. She would be loose in time and space, her past discarded as easily as tossing old bread crust into the water.

  Dan.

  Seven years ago, he died. Her new husband. Each year, on the anniversary, she travels alone, for three weeks or so, and always around the Greek islands. It is something which is now second nature. Cyclades, Dodecanese…there were as many as there were years in which to face life without Dan.

  The sun was growing hotter. The queue is undulating. She swings her rucksack up onto her back. Her foot is on the gangplank…

  Dan.

  Dan?

  She feels his hand grasp her hair. The smell of him which she loved.

  She needed him. He needed her.

  His warm skin.

  He is living in her, and she suspects he always will.

  Polly, he says. Don’t do this.

  Why tell me now? she cries silently. I am about to go in pursuit of the memories.

  Because Polly…

  Suddenly, she swivels on her heel and, pushing her way through the hot, cross tourists, retraces her steps. In the Metro she is forced to balance her rucksack on her knees. Dense with odours of discarded food and bodies crushed too tight together, it is impossible to read.

  It is late afternoon when she reaches Nico and Helena’s house. The front door is open and in Polly walks.

  The kitchen is very warm, steamy and filled with good cooking smells. Nico is chopping onions and Helena is stirring a pot on the stove. The table is piled with vegetables and cheeses wrapped in waxy paper. Since yesterday, someone had strung dried peppers over the door leading to the garden and they make a necklace of blood red drops.

  ‘Hallo.’

  Helena drops the spoon into the pot. ‘Polly…’

  ‘Do you mind? I have come back…like you said.’

  Helena gestures to the garden where the table has been laid. ‘We allocated you a place.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘We didn’t. But each year Nico and I hope.’

  Polly licked her fingertip and caught up a grain of sea salt on a chopping board and put it in her mouth. The insides of her cheeks pucker.

  Nico continues with his chopping. ‘You can only go on so long, Polly. The time comes…’

  ‘You are good to me,’ she says with a rush of emotion.

  Helena wipes her hands on her apron and grabs Polly’s hand. ‘Do you remember…afterwards that you came to stay with us and we looked after you? That makes you family.’

  The onions were making Polly cry. She holds on to Helena’s hand. ‘I suddenly thought I didn’t want to be alone today. And Nico…’

  Nico stopped the chopping.

  ‘Nico, you knew Dan. For just a few seconds, but they were important ones. You shared the moment of his death.’

  Nico frowns and Helena shakes her head at him. ‘Go on Polly.’

  ‘I can’t go on thinking about it. I can’t go over, and over the details any more.’

  ‘At last,’ says Nico.

  ‘It’s as if I am travelling over the same ground, over and over again, and never getting anywhere.’ She pauses. ‘I never arrive, however carefully I prepare.’

  Helena extracts a clean knife from the rack and hands it to Polly. ‘The tomatoes need chopping. Can you do that?’

  Polly smiles. ‘In slices?’

  ‘If you like. They’re for the sauce.’

  ‘But I must do it right.’

  ‘You do it the way which suits you,’ said Helena.

  Polly sets to, the red flesh falling away from the knife blade and the seeds spurting onto the board in a crimson gel. Just like blood. She hesitates.

  ‘Go on Polly,’ urges Helena. ‘It’s getting late.’

  Polly smiles at them both to show that she is perfectly in control. Her movements gather speed and dexterity.

  Helena adds a handful of thyme to the saucepan. ‘A bed is made up,’ she says. ‘No need to go back to the hotel.’

  She glances at her watch. At this moment, the ferry would be berthing at Skopolos and a brief, but intense, regret flits through her mind. Then it is gone.

  She glances up at the laid table where her place is waiting to be occupied. The image of Dan, held so long and violently in her mind, dims and softens into the bearable.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’

  The Rough with the Smooth

  Elizabeth Chadwick

  Elizabeth Chadwick

  Born in Bury, Lancashire, ELIZABETH CHADWICK began telling herself stories as soon as she could talk. She is the author of more than twenty historical novels, which have been translated into sixteen languages. Five times shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Association Major Award, her novel To Defy A King won the historical prize in 2011. The Greatest Knight, about forgotten hero William Marshal, became a New York Times bestselling title, and its sequel The Scarlet Lion was nominated by Richard Lee, founder of the Historical Novel Society, as one of the best historical novels of the decade. The Summer Queen, the first novel in her new trilogy about Eleanor of Aquitaine was published in June 2013.

  When not at her desk in her country cottage, she can be found researching, taking long walks with her husband and their three terriers, reading, baking, and drinking tea in copious quantities.

  She can be contacted at her website www.elizabethchadwick.com At Twitter @chadwickauthor On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.chadwick.90

  The Rough With The Smooth

  May 1164

  Isabel Countess de Warenne was smiling as she supervised the flurry of activity in her chamber. Spring sunshine spilled through the open shutters, flooding the room with light an
d drawing in the garland scent of tender greenery. It was time to wash and scrub the linens, to beat the old season out of blankets and hangings, and to let new air into the room.

  She and Hamelin had married seven weeks ago, and the sky had done nothing but rain ever since. Not that they had noticed at first, being too caught up in discovering that sometimes, against the odds, arranged marriages were very compatible. However, emerging from their cocoon of mutual delight, the constant rain had been a source of nuisance and concern; it was a relief to see the sun.

  Hamelin was the King’s half-brother and had needed an inheritance to bolster his standing at court. She was the means of providing that inheritance –a wealthy widow, just over thirty years old with castles and vast estates to her name. They had known each other for several years from a polite distance that had not allowed any room for intimacy: glance and a bow at court; a curtsey and move on. That was until the King had given the command that they wed, and without recourse to refusal.

  The potential for disaster had been huge but the opposite had happened. It was a long time since Isabel had felt so happy and fulfilled. Indeed, after the death of her first husband while on campaign in Toulouse, she had not expected to ever feel whole again. But now the sun had emerged and the world was glittering and new, like a golden chalice sparkling with pale green wine, waiting like a loving cup to be shared.

  Hamelin had ridden out on the King’s business and she had decided to use the time to spruce up their chamber so that she could surprise him on his return.

  Her steward, Thomas D’Acre, entered the room and bowed. ‘Madam, there are men at the gate craving entrance,’ he announced, his expression screwed up and doubtful. ‘Their leader claims to be a close friend of my lord Hamelin, but I have not heard of him before and he is dressed like a ruffian. He gives his name as Geoffrey of le Mans.’

  Isabel had not heard Hamelin speak of such a friend, nor had she encountered anyone of that name at court. Although England was at peace these days, common scoundrels still abounded and with Hamelin away it would be the height of folly to admit someone lacking credentials. Perhaps there was a good reason for their arrival while her husband was absent.

  ‘I will come and look,’ she said, and bidding her women continue with their task, she followed Thomas to the gatehouse where she climbed the tower to look down at their prospective visitors. They were as Thomas had stated: a rough looking group, mud-spattered and clad in rough woollens, scuffed and disreputable. Their leader, red in the face, was bellowing at the gate guards, calling them turds and idiots, and waving his fist. Isabel could see a sword hilt poking out from beneath his cloak.

  ‘Tell him to come back when my husband is at home,’ she told Thomas, looking down her nose at such uncouth behaviour. ‘They are not dressed like noblemen or anyone he would know. If they are mercenaries looking to be hired, they can go and bide their time in Lynn.’

  ‘I thought that too, Madam.’ Standing tall and expanding his chest, Thomas went off to deal with the situation.

  Feeling like a bird with ruffled feathers, Isabel returned to her spring refurbishment, chivvying the maids and immersing herself in the task until she began to feel less perturbed. Incidents such as this brought back disturbing memories of the violent war for the throne that had engulfed England for fifteen years; when strangers at the castle gate meant danger of attack and no one could be trusted.

  The exquisite whitework embroidery on the new coverlet, the jug of spring flowers on the polished coffer, and the honey scent of beeswax permeating the room eventually worked their spell and Isabel was able to put the visitors to the back of her mind. She went to sit at her sewing frame in the embrasure, where she could look out on the lovely spring day while working on the tunic hem she was embroidering for Hamelin. Selecting a warm red silk, she threaded her silver needle and began work on the lion she had outlined yesterday.

  It was early afternoon when the horn sounded at the gate again. Isabel looked up from her work, her stomach lurching with anticipation and anxiety. When Thomas sent a squire to tell her that the Earl had returned, she abandoned her sewing and flew down the stairs to the hall, arriving to greet him just as he walked in from the yard.

  Her heart opened wide at the sight of him; his height, his thick tawny-gold hair and warm brown eyes with smile creases at their edges. She greeted him with a proper formal curtsey to his bow, and although she was past thirty years old, she felt like a girl in the first flush of new love.

  ‘Husband,’ she murmured.

  ‘Wife,’ Hamelin responded, the word full of intimacy and amused affection.

  Blushing, she took him up to their chamber so that he could refresh himself, and because she wanted him to see the changes she had made. She watched his reaction as he paused on the threshold and gazed round the fresh, refurbished chamber. ‘You have been busy,’ he said with approval. ‘Very restful indeed.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I like everything you do.’ He pulled her to him, nuzzling her throat and kissing her softly on the lips. ‘I have to say the bed looks very inviting.’

  Isabel laughed and nestled against his broad chest. ‘Indeed it is, but you need to take your boots off before you try it. And are you not hungry?’

  ‘I’m ravenous but not necessarily for food.’ Giving her a wicked look, he sat down swiftly on the box chair at the bedside and began tugging off his footwear.

  Isabel dismissed the servants with a peremptory wave of her hand, and as the door closed behind the last one, knelt to help him with the task. With gentle fingers he removed her headdress and unwound her braids, letting her hair tumble around them in waves of heavy brunette silk: a sight and a privilege reserved only for a husband. He was indeed ravenous but he wanted this particular banquet to go on for ever.

  ‘We had some disreputable visitors while you were gone,’ Isabel said some considerable time later as they lazed in the aftermath of their lovemaking. ‘But Thomas saw them off.’

  ‘What do you mean “disreputable”?’ He had been stroking his forefinger up and down her bare arm but now he pulled back slightly, alert to the suggestion of danger.

  ‘Mercenary types looking to hire their swords but it might be wise to send men out to see if they caused troubled in any of the villages. Their leader claimed to know you but I doubt it. I told them to come back when you were home and that there was accommodation in Lynn should they wish to wait: I had no intention of allowing them under my roof.’

  ‘Did their leader give a name?’ There was a frown between Hamelin’s brows as he reached for his discarded shirt.

  ‘Yes, Geoffrey of le Mans. He was not the sort of person I would want to admit through my gates the way he looked and behaved. What’s wrong?’

  Hamelin had stiffened as she spoke the name and his frown had deepened.

  ‘Geoffrey of le Mans,’ he said. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Red hair, red beard with a white streak in the centre. Not a young man and dressed like a common peasant with manners to suit.’ Isabel bit her lip. ‘Surely you don’t know him?’

  ‘Very well indeed,’ Hamelin said grimly. ‘He’s my mother’s cousin and was one of my father’s most trusted knights, not to mention my tutor in arms and horsemanship when I was a boy.’

  Isabel swallowed. ‘He was dressed like a common hired soldier. Anyone looking at him would think he had mischief in mind!’

  ‘Life is not like a tale spun by a troubadour,’ he said curtly and began dressing rapidly. ‘If a man has been on the road for a while or met with difficult circumstances, he may not arrive at your door looking as if he’s about to dine at a court banquet.’

  ‘And what if I had admitted him and he had turned out to be a thief and cutthroat? How was I to know?’ Tears prickled her eyes at the injustice of his words.

  Hamelin sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots. ‘Would you say that if the Christ Child came calling dressed in rags? Would you turn Him away because you we
re not to know?’

  Her own anger began to rise. ‘So by that rule do you expect me to admit every beggar and vagabond that arrives at our gates and sit them at our table?’

  ‘By that rule I expect you not to judge people by their appearances. You have offended not only my kin but a very fine and old friend, and this might cost me that friendship.’ He stood up, his face flushed with anger. ‘Go and consult your mirror and your etiquette concerning the matter of true courtesy. You will greet all guests as my guests, not just your own.’

  Isabel watched him, a lump of misery in her stomach that felt like a lead weight. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked as he stalked towards the door.

  ‘To find him and atone where I can, because I doubt he will want to come back this way after the treatment he received.’ He clattered from the room and she heard him calling to his men.

  Isabel gave a soft gasp and pulled the covers over her head. She was angry at the way he had spoken to her but she was chastised too. She should have investigated further and not been so swift to judge. She had been too involved in sprucing up the bedchamber and too wary to consider further. Refusal had been the easiest road to take.

  It was the first argument of their marriage and her heart was bruised in a way that it would never be bruised again.

  Riding on the Lynn road, Hamelin encountered a large alehouse that had recently brewed a fresh batch as denoted by the bunch of evergreen hanging on a pole outside the door. Dismounting, he handed his horse to his squire and entered the establishment. The trestles were full of drinkers; Dame Agatha’s brew was famous and when the sign of the bush went up outside her dwelling, men flocked to taste her ale. Seated around a table at the back of the room was a motley group of men, muddy from travel. They looked weary but well able to handle themselves, especially one with a beard of rust and silver, and sharp grey eyes.

  Hamelin signalled to the pot boy and walked over to them. ‘I hear you have been creating mayhem over at Acre, cousin,’ he said, as he sat down on the bench. ‘My good wife thought you were up to no good.’