The Golden Widows

by Isolde Martyn

  ‘Now your clothes as well, girl! Strip! Strip!’

  Eleanor was screaming at someone.

  ‘Is that milk not ready yet?’ cried the man’s voice. ‘Hell, will you scald her insides! Give it here!’

  Some voice was coaxing her. Kate was vaguely aware of being eased up. The thick rim of a beaker touched her chin, then warm liquid bobbed against her lips and she opened her mouth and felt the wondrous warmth fill her mouth and sink down into her belly.

  ‘More! Drink more!’

  Then she was permitted to lie down again and turned onto her side. A woman’s body, Eleanor’s, nestled up to her back and legs, slender arms wrapped her waist and breath, close as a lover’s, touched the icy skin of her neck. Swift hands were rolling the fur tightly about them.

  Maybe we never left Westminster or perhaps the Devil is about to bake me in an oven, Kate thought as the world retreated and her mind sank into oblivion.

  She came to her senses groggily and it took a while to comprehend she was lying in some sort of animal-skin cocoon with a woman’s naked flesh tight against her back. Raising one eyelid, she could see within hand’s reach a tiny wall of stones encircling a heap of glowing embers, a pair of boots, and some crudely made fire tongs. The air was smoky and she felt unpleasantly hot. It must be Purgatory, she concluded. But lying with another woman naked against her? This was a punishment beyond her comprehension. How many years was she supposed to stay like this before the Devil drove her down into his furnace? She was not ready for this, Cecily needed her. Cecily! Mother of God forgive her sins! She had failed to reach Cecily!

  She panicked, stifled, struggling to escape and a startled Devon voice shrieked in her ear, ‘No, madame, no! Calm yourself!’

  ‘Eleanor! Is that you? Christ have mercy, where are we?’ Kate struggled to free herself but the girl’s arms were wrapped about her. She had many a time shared a bed with her bodyservant, but not pressed together like this – this was utterly sinful. ‘What has happened? Is this Hell?’

  The girl’s laughter vibrated against Kate’s ribs. ‘God save you, madame, no.’ Another amused splutter. ‘This was my lord’s notion. It were the only way, he said. Now if you’ll forgive me, I’ll get out now and make myself decent, for my bladder is fair to bursting. I’ll be bringing you some more warm milk soon enow. Turn around, if you, please!’ She was giggling, making no sense as she wriggled out. Kate heard the rustle of clothing behind her and rolled over, trying to see in the darkness.

  A wooden stall with the glimmer of a palliasse lay along the wall with a raggedy, rough-woven curtain tethered to a rail above it. To the left, a broad-brimmed ploughman’s hat and a cowskin shared a hook upon a door of crudely hewn boards. Eleanor reached to the latch for support as she slid on her shoes.

  ‘Eleanor, wait! For the love of heaven, which lord?’

  ‘This one,’ said a man’s voice. The pair of knee-high, spurred boots arranged before the fire suddenly moved and Kate’s thawed mind realised that inhabiting them was a pair of legs clad in dark hose. The bootcaps turned her way and she blinked up at the fine woollen houpelande, the richly embossed buckle on his leather belt, the collar of office and above that, the face of the king’s chamberlain. Lit from below, his grin was demoniac and Kate caught her breath. As if the sumptuously clad Lord Hastings would be standing in a hovel like this.

  ‘Katherine?’ The man even sounded like Lord Hastings and now he crouched down beside her. His fingers felt surprisingly human as they tilted her face to the feeble firelight. ‘Do you know me? Katherine?’

  ‘This is the Devil’s work. It…it can’t be you,’ she protested. ‘You’re at Westminster with Ned.’

  ‘No, I’m here with you and you’re a foolish hen, Kate. You nearly killed yourself.’

  She gazed at him, struggling to understand. ‘Then this isn’t Purgatory?’

  His laugh was tinged with irony and there was a sensual twist to his lips as his gaze moved across her bared shoulders. ‘Only for me, I think.’

  She struggled to extricate herself and then realised anew that she was not wearing a thread of clothing. ‘I am going mad.’ Clutching the fur roll to her breastbone with one hand, she scrambled back onto her knees and tried to make the sign against the evil eye. ‘In the Name of our Lord Jesus, if you are the Devil manifesting yourself as Hastings, I abjure you, incubus! Get you gone!’

  There was a silence. Then he said with amusement, ‘I’m still here.’ Not only that but he was trying not to roar with laughter.

  ‘Oh,’ said Kate with a mixture of disappointment and relief that was rapidly changing to hot embarrassment. She remembered riding post-haste because Cecily needed her. ‘But where’s my daughter, you incubus?’ she exclaimed with righteous anger. ‘Have you taken my daughter?’

  Lord Hastings, if it truly was him, looked quite chagrined. ‘You’ll see her soon enough. I have sent a messenger ahead to Devonshire. Now do you think you could come to your senses? I’ve been called a plethora of names in my time by some of England’s greatest whoresons, but incubus…no, my lady, that is unjust of you.’

  Before Kate could answer, a draft of icy air goose-fleshed her shoulders as Eleanor came in. ‘Here we are, my lady. Fresh and warm from the cow.’

  ‘From our own horned beasts,’ murmured Hastings, rising to his feet. ‘We always serve it up in Purgatory to newcomers. It helps people feel at home before we start using the pincers.’

  The crudely fashioned beaker was real enough; the milk, warm and true to her tongue. Kate glared up at the lordly devil over the rim, feeling even more stupid. Yes, she remembered rain, the diabolical, unrelenting rain and the ceaseless road! Her fingers touched a dag of mud still in her hair at her temple.

  ‘Souls,’ she corrected.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Not people but souls, sirrah. You would not get people in Purgatory.’

  ‘You tripped me up.’ He sucked in his cheeks. ‘How many fingers, my lady?’ His right hand rose, the thumb hidden.

  ‘Four,’ answered Kate grimly. ‘How many fingers, my lord?’ It was the V-sign of the defiant archers at Agincourt and unladylike but it made her feel better.

  ‘I see you are restored to your old self, Lady Harrington,’ he replied dryly. ‘You want answers, I suppose.’ As if pinioned by her fierce stare, he added, ‘We are in a poor farmhouse on the road to Salisbury.’ With him. Now why was that?

  ‘Excellent,’ she said, ‘then I can find my way. I thank you for any assistance you have rendered, Lord Hastings, but whatever coincidence of planets or machinations by the king and my brother served you up here can take you hence.’

  ‘But, my lady, you don’t understand,’ interrupted Eleanor. ‘My lord saved your life yesternight.’ Clearly in alliance with Lord Hastings, the girl glanced up at him for endorsement.

  ‘Not without your invaluable help, Eleanor.’ The debonair smile was pasted on again. ‘But maybe we should not have bothered. Your lady has warmed up into a temper or is this the last remnants of frost, do you suppose?’

  Kate stared from one to the other. ‘Perhaps telling me what happened might be useful, my lord.’

  Eleanor answered eagerly. ‘You were almost frozen to death, my lady, but my lord wrapped us up like a pair of caterpillars and you slowly warmed.’ Kate remembered the fall but not being brought to this place. ‘You were soaked to the skin, my lady, but there was no stopping you and the damp began to numb your mind. Truly, you were falling into some deep sleep unto death an’, saving your pardon, madame, but it was seemingly no different from what some beggars do when they lie down in snow.’

  So despite her servants, she had nearly died. Lord Hastings added nothing but he was watching her with concern.

  ‘Then I owe you both my life and I thank you.’

  She finished the milk, her mind sharpening by the instant. Whether Lord Hastings had come after her was of no consequence if Cecily lay grievously ill. She had to get back to Shute. ‘Eleanor, inform our
people that we leave within half an hour.’

  ‘But, my lady—’

  Hastings took the beaker and checked that she had drunk it all. ‘What your servant is trying to tell you, my lady, is that firstly, it is still about three hours to daylight, secondly, mighty cold out there, and thirdly, I have no intention of letting you venture forth until you are fully recovered.’

  ‘I feel fully recovered now,’ Kate lied, although her body was still weary and her muscles stiff. ‘Eleanor, we shall leave at dawn. And what is so amusing?’ The girl’s lips were a tight pleat in the firelight.

  ‘You cannot travel without clothes, Lady Katherine,’ Lord Hastings pointed out reasonably. Dashing her glance downwards, Kate saw where he was looking and cursed inwardly. The fur wrap was halfway down her breasts. The wretched man was loving every minute of this.

  ‘I should like my clothes returned, my lord.’ She tried to keep her tone even.

  ‘Only when they are dry. Mind,’ he murmured silkily, ‘you would look fetching in one of my shirts.’

  It was hard to be dignified when you felt like the centre of a pastry roll. She lapsed into a tense silence, her knuckles glimmering white as she clasped the fur tight against her. She was furious with Ned and Richard. If they had sent Hastings to bring her to obedience, they mistook their quarry.

  ‘So why are you in Wiltshire, my lord? Conducting a new doomsday book survey or finding some rural virgins to keep the king’s grace in good humour.’

  ‘Madame!’ Eleanor was looking at her in horror. Yes, she was behaving badly, Kate admitted to herself.

  Hastings took a flask from the breast of his doublet and smiled at her before he took a draught. ‘I am here to bed you, of course, but all in good time. I don’t want a bride with less heat than a snowman.’ His capable hand pushed the stopper firmly back in.

  ‘Bed me?’ Kate’s stare rose. She was looking up once more into a face that echoed her own – determined and much more, for it did not take an angry fool to read the desire in his eyes or the ownership in the smile curling his mouth.

  ‘Bed me?’ she echoed, reeling beneath that devastating purpose in him. ‘The hell you will, my lord! I told you I was not in a marrying mind.’

  ‘But I am, madness though it is, and I have the permission of your brothers and the king’s grace, as you know well.’

  It was impossible to lash out in fury from such ludicrous confinement. ‘Oh, by Heaven!’ Snarling under her breath, she struggled to turn her back on him and her maidservant, and glared into the darkness with tears biting behind her eyelids.

  Above her, she heard him laugh good-humouredly and felt a hand that was not Eleanor’s settle with assurance on her bare shoulder. Even his touch had a power over her. ‘Easy, Katherine, we’ll not being doing it before this hearth like a couple of peasants.’

  ‘I’ll not be doing it at all, my lord.’ A clenched teeth answer.

  Her maidservant intervened. ‘But, my lady, I beg you to remember that Lord Hastings saved your life.’

  ‘You be quiet!’ Kate wriggled round to challenge him. ‘Have you abducted me, my lord?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Please you, my lord,’ whispered Eleanor, as though someone had asked her to play at peace broking. ‘Can this matter not be set aside until she’s—’

  ‘No.’ He was laughing, damn him! ‘No, anger is healthy. It will heat your lady’s blood.’ He leaned down, his handsome mouth compassionate, his eyes provoking her. ‘You’ll keep, Kate. The morning will suffice. And you, little Eleanor, should get some more sleep. There’s a pallet over there.’ Then he turned away and set wood to cover the embers, ignoring Kate who was still as hissy as a snake. Fuming, she curled her body away from him.

  Eleanor obediently disappeared behind the curtain and save for the crackle of the new wood and the girl’s deepening breath, the hovel fell silent. It was chill now without Eleanor to shield her from the draft seeping beneath the door. Kate was too tense to sleep but she closed her eyes tight and feigned slumber.

  His tiresome lordship was not asleep either. She heard the creak of boot leather as he crossed to the door, and the latch lifting. The instant he was gone, she loosened her covering and shuffled across to peer out the cracks in the wooden shutter. It was still dark as pitch outside but it had stopped raining. She saw a lantern moving around the yard and heard Hastings speaking softly. Several other voices answered. How many did he have with him? It looked as though the rest of his company and her own people were in the barn alongside; a glimmer of light showed beneath its doors. She tried to make out the rest of her surroundings. Judging by the shifting shapes under the open byre, that was where the horses were tethered.

  Was Hastings intent on taking her back to Westminster? Her mind slid over the alternatives open to her once dawn came. Newton and her escort were capable of helping her but even if they could get her away, she could never outride Hastings and his men, and Newton might get horsewhipped or do something gallant and futile.

  Not just the lantern returning her way but the stabs of icy air through the cracks drove her back to the hearth. Sweet Mother of God, she thought, curling about the stones and vigorously rubbing her hands over her goose-fleshed arms, what a fool she had been to think she could sidestep this conspiracy of men determined to bend her to their will. Well, there was still the word ‘no’. Hastings could hardly force a ring on her finger without her consent. She snuggled deep into the fur blanket and realised it had the scent of the musk he used in its folds. Then the latch lifted and she felt the cold come in with her future master. She sensed he halted, staring down at her, before she heard him poking the logs and then the rustle of wool and creak of leather as he lowered himself to the floor. Silence.

  How could she reach Shute? She sent prayers for her little child heavenwards to every saint who might intercede for her but again and again her thoughts drew her back to her own future. If Hastings hauled her before a priest, would Holy Church support her refusal? She began to doubt her chances. Even in cases of noblewomen abducted and raped, the church usually urged marriage in case a child had been conceived. All that stood in Hastings’ way was a jolly benedictus and a spatter of holy water and then he could consummate his physical ownership of her. At that thought, her treasonous body began to ripen, quivering with the imagining as though his body already claimed her.

  And God’s mercy, there was little to stop him doing it now.

  She turned over stealthily and stole a glance at the man through her lashes only to discover he was still awake. He checked her, not smiling now, and assuming she still slept resumed his solemn reverie, staring into the dulled fire, his mouth a stubborn quill slash. The nervousness tensing Kate’s limbs to shaking subsided. Maybe he did not want this any more than she! And yet the way he had looked at her, the way he had been able to heat her blood and spur awake her womanly parts deep inside. God’s truth, he could evoke a hunger in her, an urgent yearning to taste the danger of him, like daring the fire to burn her skin or recklessly mounting a wild stallion. Marriage with Hastings would be…would be like harnessing the light of the sun for it would hurt…chill her to the bone, whenever his gaze turned away.

  The real man shifted, leaned an elbow on the ground, careful to arrange his body so that the meagre heat still reached all of her. That thoughtfulness again. Was her survival truly due to his quick thinking? Her chance of holding Cecily again within her arms due to him?

  He was clever, she knew that. He even knew she was watching him for he turned his head.

  ‘Did you know that Towton was fought in a snowstorm, my lady?’

  ‘Is that what you were thinking about?’

  A small flame was struggling in the embers. Its light danced and flickered upon his skin.

  ‘Yes.’ The word was a long sigh.

  Well, at least a man remembering a bloody battle was certainly not thinking about making love.

  ‘Today reminded you?’

  Hastings nodded, still
watching the feeble flame playing across the logs. ‘The wind was so icy it could have cut parchment and there were so many wounded, too many. Some staggering, some screaming for help. Others were just lying there in the snow across the fields or down in the ditches, slowly freezing to death.’

  Kate began to understand. She propped her chin in her hand. ‘But you saved them.’

  ‘Me, no, but we had one of the best surgeons I have ever met in my life, thank God. He could sew men back together better than any tailor. But the cold was the very devil. It took a damn long time to find some of the poor wretches. Brought in with their eyes staring, their skins white and waxy. I would have sworn some of them were dead until the surgeon made me feel for a pulse in their necks. We didn’t have heated bricks but we did have the living, and do you know what he ordered us to do? He paired each frozen wretch with a man who was still whole. “Hold ’em as though they were your best beloved,” he told them, and it worked for most. Truth to tell, some of them recovered better than the wounded who had been brought into the tents straightway.’ He turned his head to look at her.

  ‘That is how you knew what to do?’

  ‘Yes. I did not think the words “goose” and “numbskull” could ever fit you, Katherine, but in your mad haste, you not only put your own life at risk but your servants’ as well and that is quite unforgivable.’

  ‘Cecily—’

  ‘Cecily,’ he cut in, ‘has a doting grandmother and a houseful of servants to look after her, madame, not to mention my own physician who will reach Shute today. Besides, girl children are tough little mites. Speak the truth, Katherine. You were not running to Cecily, you were running away from me.’

  He should have been voted a speech of gratitude for setting her mind at ease somewhat about her daughter but she was still feeling rebellious. ‘We have already had this conversation.’

  ‘And I am found wanting, while you are, what, perfection? Is that why Will Bonville found solace with a farmer’s daughter?’

  Her body trembled with fury. ‘Where on earth did you hear that?’