Cloistered Bride

by Ling, Maria

  Eventually, since she showed no sign of ceasing, he walked around the bed and clambered in from the far side. An odd experience, he wasn't used to this side, he had a ridiculous feeling he was about to fall out again. Still she prayed, on a breath just below a whisper, in quick words he could not distinguish.

  Might as well think about the matter at hand, then. Clarice's uncle had been quite explicit about what was required, and Richard agreed with the sense of it. He'd seen dead bodies enough, created some too, that wasn't the part that bothered him. Ralph, good friend that he was, had volunteered to help arrange the corpse for suitable effect. Now all they needed was a dead man, preferably young and fit and ruddy-haired, and dressed in good linen.

  Easy.

  Richard flicked through the estate tenants in his mind, moved on to those in nearby settlements, gave up on all. Those the right age and build were all maimed, or else long since dead. There was a shortage of fighting men right now, and for good reason.

  Clarice rose at last, stood for a moment looking down at him, he felt the touch of her gaze. Met it with his own, saw her flinch and turn away.

  "What?" Richard asked. He hadn't done anything, at least nothing that he knew of, to make her take against him so. Last night she'd been eager enough. Maybe that shamed her now. Except it wasn't shame, no, he knew that tension of shoulder and arm, felt it in his own body too. As in the moment before a fight, when nerves and muscles strained to do their utmost, and there was not yet any cause to move.

  "Nothing." She climbed into bed, carefully, keeping her shift decorously tucked around her. Lay utterly still as he reached over to touch.

  Saints in heaven, they were back where they started. "I thought you'd shed these nunnish ways," Richard said with an attempt at a grin. "You were keen enough last night."

  "It was different then."

  "Different how?"

  She didn't answer, didn't respond to his caress. He sat up and stared at her, frowning. "What?"

  "Nothing." She'd closed her eyes, and for a moment that deathlike stillness rested over her again. Richard flinched.

  "If I've done something to displease you," he said, "I'd rather you just tell me what it is. If I'm supposed to guess, we could be in for a long dull night. And I for one had other plans."

  She didn't smile. Didn't look at him, either. Just lay there like an angelic corpse. "Do as you wish," she said.

  That was the way to get him excited, yes. Richard felt as if he'd been doused in ice-water. "Is there some particular reason for this?" he asked. "Something I should know about -- women's troubles of some kind?" That was about all he knew of such matters, if she wanted him to make allowances she'd have to teach him more. Or just say so, damn the woman.

  "Trouble of some kind," Clarice said. "Yes."

  Well, they were that far ahead, at least. "For how long?"

  "I don't know."

  Well, if she didn't, he certainly couldn't guess. "Right," Richard said. "Let me know when you're happy to be a wife again." He slumped back onto the mattress, trying to quell his rising anger. Frustration, too.

  She could at least talk to him.

  Unless she felt too sick to move. Ralph had a woman vomit on him once, because it was her time. That story had bought them a place by the fire more than once.

  "Anything I can do to make you comfortable?" Richard asked, in a belated effort to be courteous.

  "Not really," Clarice said. "Thank you."

  And that was that. They lay side by side in icy silence, not touching, while darkness fell.

  Until Richard sat bolt upright, stared into the dark, came to a decision. Struggled into hose and shoes, barged out onto the landing and found Ralph by the cupboard door.

  "Fire," Richard said. "Then it doesn't matter what he looks like. Or what linen he's wearing, either."

  ***

  CHAPTER 6

  "He's a bit on the old side," John admitted. "And he lost eyes and testicles for supporting the wrong cause. But if he's scorched enough, they won't be able to tell."

  Richard nodded slowly. "How did he die?"

  "Fever burned him out at last. It's not to be wondered at -- I saw the wound myself. Putrid and festering. He never did take good care of himself. Partly with living alone, you know. His sister brought him food and such, but he wouldn't have her in the house. Said he'd been hounded by women all through childhood, and he wouldn't have it now." John fixed Richard with a grim stare. "He stayed loyal. Even after what Stephen's men did to him. Always said he could be counted on, should the young prince ever need him."

  "That I do," Henry said. "And for this sacrifice, he's earned my prayers. Masses for his soul, too, once I'm safe away and no one hears the name. What was it? I wish to remember."

  "Osfrid," John said. "He was a good man. A good neighbour, even if he wouldn't leave those boundary markers where they belonged. I'll miss him."

  They were huddled together in the stable, holding quiet conference in the chill of dawn. Soon the lad would be back from his breakfast in the warm kitchen, and stretch his ears while he groomed the beasts. What was to be settled, must be settled now.

  "Can you and Ralph together do this?" Richard asked. John and Ralph exchanged measuring glances, then nodded each in turn. "I'll lend coat and boots of my own -- "

  "Better not," Clarice's uncle said. "Don't want that pair of dogs you have at your heels to sniff ugly work on you. Best look innocent, and let the rest of us act for you."

  "That's sense," Ralph agreed.

  "I'll take those of the dead man," Henry said. "If I may. And leave a few coins for his sister, too. She'll lose a great deal by this."

  "Not so much as you'd think," John said. "But she'll thank your lordship for it. As I do."

  "All of us," Richard said. "We're still true here." Not that he was, he'd never set his heart in the Angevin cause. With Miles and Robert both dead, he breathed freely again. But other men could turn the screws, just the same. It was well to have friends in so high a place.

  "So I see," Henry said. "I will remember that, too."

  He seemed chastened, eyes bleak in the pallor that drifted through the cracks between the planks. More to mend, Richard thought, his mind always half on the estate. He had work and to spare waiting for him, once all this was over.

  "What I suggest," Richard said, "is that you leave now. Quietly. Get it all arranged as we've planned. The dogs don't rise early as a rule, and I'll hold them with meat and hot wine for as long as I can. When they come for a look -- which they will do, I'm sure of that -- you'll all be well away."

  "What about the rest of us?" Eustace asked. "There's only one body. Where did we go, while you killed our lord?"

  "You paid me off," Richard said. "Knowing the cause was lost, now that he'd been discovered. You knew Stephen was sure to get him, here or elsewhere, and wished to make your own position safe."

  Eustace gave a dubious grunt.

  "We have a single corpse," Richard said reasonably. "Sent as if from Heaven. I was only charged to kill one man, and this desecration is bad enough, I'll not imperil my soul with more."

  "Will they believe it, though?" Eustace asked. "Will Stephen?"

  "The dogs can tell him what he wants to know. I have the false names you gave, that should hold them off. If he does track you down... Well, he knows where to find you if he wishes to."

  Eustace nodded. "Fair point. Flanders is pleasant this time of year. Once I'm clear, I might take a little trip abroad until the fuss dies down. If those hounds recognised me, or if you're made to talk, then it's as well for me to be out of the way. Tell them I'm out for what I can get, always." He grinned. "And the young prince promised me your lands. I couldn't resist taking a look around. I'll confess as much, if I need to."

  "You're taking a great risk," Henry said. "I'm grateful."

  "I'm already chin deep," Eustace said. "But Stephen forgets, or pretends to. He knows he can't harry every lord who's turned against him at some point, or he'd have
none left to serve him at all."

  "Truth," Clarice's uncle said. "I've seen it happen, more than once. Though it's dangerous to show yourself so openly."

  Eustace shrugged. "I was never one for intrigue. Who and what I stand for -- or against -- is plain to be seen. This creeping about on the sly is rather refreshing, to be honest."

  "We can be away within a moment," Henry said. "If that suits you all."

  Richard left them saddling the horses, while he himself sauntered back to the house. There he paced the hall until he heard the dull thud of hooves, went to the door and watched the group ride away. One turned as they reached the far edge of the fields, raised a hand in thanks and farewell, and then they disappeared.

  A fine man after all, Henry, Richard reflected. Not the silly youth who'd embarrassed himself and his mother's cause years ago, by arriving in England to support the rebellion with neither money nor men, just his own holy self. That hadn't lasted long. But he'd grown since then, he'd proved a man now. Worth following, should it come to that.

  Richard hoped it wouldn't. He'd seen enough of war.

  Soft steps behind him startled him out of his reverie. He turned to find Clarice, dressed and combed and lavish in a red and gold concoction, watching him with something akin to fear.

  "I need to know," she said, "what is happening. Who it is you mean to kill and desecrate, and why."

  Richard swayed, and grabbed the door-post to keep himself from toppling. "What have you heard?"

  "Yesterday," Clarice said, "when you saw them all in our room, I came back while you were talking."

  Richard's breath caught. "So I didn't imagine that creak after all. Thank God it was you."

  "Do not speak that name so lightly," Clarice reproved.

  "You never spoke it with greater feeling," Richard assured her. "Not even in prayer." He recollected himself, the hall was no safe place for this kind of talk. "Come," he said, and took her by the hand, and led her to the chamber at the far end. It had been a storeroom once, he used it now to conduct all the business of the manor. A good notion, he'd keep that arrangement. It had a door too, which shut fast. Though he didn't dare trust to that, given what she'd overheard through another door.

  He pulled her close, felt a sting of disappointment at the tension in her body, the reluctance just short of resistance. "It's not what you think," he said, and in a low voice gave her a brief account of the matter.

  If it set her mind at rest, she concealed that well. The expression on her face did change, from fear to dismay and then to grave disapproval. "You place your soul in peril," she said when he had done. "Please reconsider. Do not do this dreadful thing."

  "Too late for that," Richard said. "It's being done as we speak."

  "But not by you?"

  "No," Richard admitted. "At my request, and with my blessing. On my orders, you might say." Not that Ralph took command from him, their friendship was one of equals, but still. Richard took the responsibility on his own shoulders. It was not Ralph who should bear the blame for this, if blame there was.

  But he'd take that up with a priest in due course. Now was not the time. Already he heard thuds and steps from above, the room where the earl's men lodged lay directly above this one. She'd hidden there, fool woman, it was a mercy she hadn't been seen. Or raised their suspicions, he felt a chill at that thought. But no: they would have made a point of keeping watch on him, they would have tracked him down the stairs before dawn and followed him to his clandestine meeting in the stable. Instead they'd snored away, oblivious, and only now rose to break their fast.

  "You can still stop them," Clarice said. "If you choose." Pale light rested on her set face, and the wimple covered her hair. Even with the lavish dress, she looked every part a nun.

  It didn't grate on Richard as it had done before. He could do with some religion in his life. "Pray for me," he said.

  "I will," Clarice replied. "I already do. For the others, also -- I will add their names when next I pray. But you must repent, and show that repentance through your actions. The rest is mere empty words."

  "I'll do what I must to keep the hounds off my back and my own friends alive," Richard said curtly. "That I do not repent of."

  "But to desecrate a body -- "

  "Better than murder," Richard pointed out. "Which it what you thought me guilty of, at first."

  Clarice started, and her pallor waned. "So I did," she admitted. "I wronged you, and I'm sorry for it."

  "Never mind." He pulled her towards him again, and this time she came willingly, melted soft in his arms. "You weren't to know." He kissed her, light yielding lips, felt the curves of her body lush against his chest and groin, imagined her in bed. That would have to wait, steps thumped on the stairs now, the earl's men were almost on him. Still he held his wife close, imagined her with him in the privacy of their own bedchamber, longed for evening.

  But he had the day to get through first. A long day, and a difficult one, during which he must test himself against the hounds and evade their suspicious snuffling. They were here now, their voices gruff and low in the hall.

  He released Clarice with an apologetic smile, pushed all intimate thoughts aside. "Later," he said. "Remember: you know nothing of this. I don't want you involved in any way."

  She stared back at him, unwavering, and for a moment seemed almost defiant. Then she seemed to recollect herself, or her duties as a wife in any case, lowered her gaze and nodded acquiescence. First time he'd been pleased with her submissiveness.

  "Breakfast," Richard said. They emerged together in the hall, which was filling up now with servants and guests.

  "What happened to that party of visitors?" one of the earl's men asked, with a sharp glance at Richard.

  "They would be away early," Richard replied with what he hoped was equanimity. "I sent a few men with them, to show them the best route across my land." He gave a significant nod. "Make sure no harm comes to them here."

  "I see." The man offered a faint smile. "You'd be sorry to have to tell their families they'd had a misadventure of any kind."

  "Precisely," Richard said. "Whereas now I have witnesses to say they got away safely, and once they're off into another lord's territory, their welfare is no concern of mine."

  "Any particular lord you have in mind?"

  "They were heading west," Richard said. "Where my estate borders that of a rebel baron. We've had some disputes in the past."

  "More in the present, now that you're loyal to the king." The man fixed him with a sharp stare. "Or is your reckoning that they'll cross the boundary and be away?"

  "My reckoning," Richard said, "is that they left my house in good health and good order, in the company of two of my friends and a few attendants. Not enough, I grant, to make a stand at arms against an ambush in force. But sufficient to deter any stray robbers and thieves. Unless those strike after my own men have turned aside. Take some hot wine."

  "I will," the man said, and let himself be silenced.

  Richard smiled at Clarice. A wasted effort, for she was staring at her food, and not eating.

  "Not hungry, madam?" the other earl's man said. Clarice started, gave him a cold look, picked at the bread.

  "My wife is accustomed to fasting on all but holy days," Richard said.

  "God," the earl's man replied. "Do nuns ever eat?"

  "Oh, yes." Clarice stared right back at him with deceptive innocence. Richard had the sense that he'd started more than he could control. "On Sundays and holy days, as my husband says. The rest of the time, they live on God's word alone."

  The man's grin faltered. "Right."

  "So should we all," Richard said with pious calm. "Perhaps we'd best not serve wine at breakfast in future."

  "It would be to everyone's spiritual benefit." Clarice turned the dreamy gaze on him. Waspish creature, he thought, and suppressed a grin of his own.

  "Plain water from the well," Richard said, "and old bread. Does it need drying out specially, or can we ju
st leave it to the night air?"

  "Wait," the earl's man said. "No one told me I was coming to a monastery."

  "We'll bake only once a week," Clarice said. "On Saturday, to have the bread fresh for the morning. After that, it will be stale enough."

  "You don't think we should chastise ourselves further?" Richard asked. "Whippings at dawn, that sort of thing?"

  "Here," the earl's man said. "Enough of that. It's not funny."

  "I think our guests might object," Richard amended. "Let's show ourselves indulgent and hospitable while they are here."

  "Very well," Clarice said. "As you command, my lord."

  ***

  "Easy work," Ralph said. He looked pale, though, and he reeked of smoke.

  "Go and wash." Richard grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside. The earl's men watched with amused interest from the patch by the workshop, which for want of a more suitable space served as their sparring ground. Richard's swordsmanship was improving, at least.

  "No," Richard decided. "On second thoughts, don't. You just brought me word, right?"

  "Did I?"

  "They can smell it from there," Richard said. "What's the word?"

  "I don't know." Ralph rubbed his face with the back of his hand, leaving a sooty smear. "There's a fire. Well, there was when I left."

  "Good." This he had given some thought to. "That was the idea. Get it done on the quiet. Lure him there and cut his throat, then dispose of the body. To everyone else, he rode on and never showed again."

  "Right." Ralph nodded. "Makes sense to me. You want me to lead the party out there?"

  "No need," Richard said. "I know the place. You can go and clean up now."

  "Thanks." Ralph took off for the main building. Richard walked back to the earl's men.

  "All taken care of," Richard said. "They're getting rid of the traces now."

  "Setting fire to them, by the smell," one of the men observed.

  "My orders," Richard said. "I won't have everyone know I've killed royal kin. This way it'll look like some unfortunate cottager burned in his own home."