The Wolves of Brittany Collection: A Romance Bundle Books 1-3

by Victoria Vane

  Mati was fifteen, but she still wore the leggings and jerkin she had made from the hide of her first deer. She had outgrown long ago the leather clothes that Roland had given her.

  She had followed him everywhere for three years, shadowing him as he trapped rabbits, and later as he hunted deer on his father’s lands. He had taught her to hunt with a bow and arrow, building a light bow for her as soon as he had the skill. He had taught her to stalk her prey silently even in the forest, where twigs and branches always threatened to give her position away.

  But Norman sons did not live with their families. Sir John said that at the age of twelve Roland had stayed home too long already. It had broken her heart when Roland was fostered away to Sir Richard’s keep to become a squire, and eventually a knight, so that one day he might inherit his father’s lands. She had wept while she watched her only friend ride away from the bailey, and she had not even tried to hide her tears. He had sniffled, too, before mounting the new horse Sir John had given him, though he had been far too old for weeping.

  Mati hated the elaborate Norman ritual that had stolen her best friend from her. By the time Roland returned, they would both be grown, and strangers.

  She followed the doe’s blood trail into a deep ticket. The doe lay where she had died. Mati lowered her bow, speaking a prayer in Welsh. She hunted Sir John’s lands, as Roland had taught her. But she would not keep the venison for the castle. She would take it to the village, and give it to the Saxon families who by law could not hunt for themselves on pain of death.

  Mati spent all of her days in the forest. The snow was thick on the branches and fell down the back of her woolen tunic as she walked beneath the trees’ heavy limbs. She preferred the cold of winter to the warmth of the women’s solar, with its endless wool spinning and its endless chatter. Only her mother was quiet. Mati would have liked a word from her, but Margaret’s marriage to Sir John Ellsrod had silenced her forever.

  One day in January, the snow fell so deep that Mati could not go out for fear that she might not find her way back. She would not have missed the prison of Sir John’s keep, but her mother was there, and she would not leave her.

  And someday Roland would come home.

  On the day she was stuck indoors, Mati wore a clean dress and shift, her hair held off her forehead by the bone combs Roland had carved for her when she was nine. She sat silent among the women, aware their distrust. She was a barbarian, allowed to run wild in the woods like a peasant child. She heard them whispering as she came into the solar. After she entered, they were silent for a full minute before resuming their chatter about baby-making and husbands. Their shrill talk was forced and loud after the long silence.

  Mati spun her wool quietly, trying to make her threat thin, glad at least for the lanolin that soothed her rough hands. She was thinking of the new bow of birch wood that she would carve when spring came when her mother entered the solar. Lady Margaret was followed by a woman Mati had never seen before.

  All the women stood as her mother entered, and they curtseyed to her in unison. Mati stood as well, holding her spindle carefully so she would remember not to drop it.

  Margaret crossed the room to the corner where Mati stood. She lifted her daughter’s chin and gazed into her clear green eyes, the eyes so like her father’s. “Matilda, I have a new nurse for you.”

  Mati met her gaze. “I have a nurse.”

  “Kara is going home to be married.”

  Mati blinked, feeling tears rise, knowing that she could not shed them in that room, in front of all those women.

  Her mother’s fingers were gentle as she released her chin, but Mati knew that just as she must not show weakness in front of the Normans they lived among, neither could her mother.

  Margaret gestured and the unknown woman stepped forward, stopping to curtsey to Mati, her long blonde hair falling in a curtain that hid her face. The other women gasped and then fell into a silence so deep that Mati wondered if they would ever find the bottom of it. The unknown woman met her gaze and spoke as if she could not feel the other women’s shock, as if respect were Mati’s birthright.

  “My lady, I am Arabella of Anjou. I have come here to be your teacher.”

  Mati was silent for a moment, assessing her. Any woman who showed her respect deserved a hearing. “And what am I to learn?”

  Arabella smiled, and Mati saw that her eyes were hazel, with glints of green buried in them. “We will discuss that another day.”

  She looked at the woman for a long moment. Arabella’s accent was less offensive than most Norman French, softer on the ear. Mati nodded, not certain she would spend a great deal of time with her, whatever her mother said. She did not know what a soft woman who lived indoors might teach her. But she called on her long-lost manners, and forced a small smile. “All right.”

  She sat down again and began to spin her thread. Arabella sat beside Margaret near the fire and did not try to speak to Mati again that day. Mati almost forgot the woman, worried as she was that Kara was leaving her, until she looked up once during the endless afternoon and found Arabella staring at her. She raised an eyebrow, wondering if her mother’s newest waiting woman found some fault with her, as all the Norman ladies did, but Arabella only smiled.

  That evening Mati was alone in her room, stringing her lute with deer gut strands when Arabella knocked on her door. It was not usual for a young woman to have a room of her own, but Sir John was rich and no one wanted to serve as bedfellow to the Welsh barbarian. Margaret, knowing her daughter well, did not press the subject with her Norman ladies.

  Arabella came in and stood at the door as Mati drew the final string through the frame of her lute and bound it. “Good evening, my lady.”

  Mati did not waste breath on lies, but addressed the woman as an equal, as if she were Welsh. “I’m not a lady, you know. At best, I’m a miss.”

  The half smile on Arabella’s lovely face did not falter. “But you will be a lady when you marry.”

  Mati broke off the extra strand with her teeth and laid the lute down. She did not answer, as her fate was still undecided.

  “Can you play that?” Arabella asked, stepping further into the room, the light of the fire casting shadows on her face.

  “Not much.” Mati watched Arabella warily. “Kara was supposed to teach me, but…”

  “You’d rather be hunting.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever thought of hunting bigger game, my lady?”

  Mati frowned. “You mean boar?”

  “No. Men.”

  Mati’s frown deepened. “What would I want with a man?”

  Arabella’s smile took on a secretive gleam, and Mati wondered that it meant. “What he would want from you is the point, my lady. And what you could get from him because of it.”

  “You mean sex?” Mati almost laughed. How could sex be of any use to a girl tasked with keeping her virtue intact for her husband? “Like the horses in the stables?”

  “Not exactly like horses, my lady. Most men aren’t so large, for one thing.”

  Mati did laugh out loud then. “Does my mother know you talk this way?”

  Arabella smiled serenely and sat in the room’s only chair. She drew it close to the fire and warmed her hands. Mati saw how fine and white her hands were. She saw two rings flash in the light of the embers, rubies in gold settings.

  “No. Your mother has never learned to use her God given charms to her advantage. So she rots away in this wasteland under the boot of a fool.” Arabella’s voice stayed honeyed and smooth as she dismissed one of the king’s trusted vassals with a wave of a jeweled hand.

  Mati laughed louder at that, smiling at Arabella for the first time. She respected her stepfather, for Sir John Ellsrod had always been kind to her. But even the best Norman was still a Norman. “And you would save me from such a fate?”

  “That is why I am here. When I am done, your mother has promised to pay me enough gold to return to civilization.”
r />   “My mother has hired you?”

  “Let us not use such vulgar terms. I am here to help you. In return, your mother will help me.”

  Arabella’s smile vanished, and she looked into Mati’s eyes. “She does not want to see you in a similar position when you marry. She wants you to be free. As free as a woman can be in this benighted world. And that means that no matter where you are bound, or to whom, you must rule your husband. I am here to show you how.”

  Mati knew that her future would be a bargaining chip, her marriage an attempt to keep the peace between the Princes of Powys and the English lords perhaps, as her mother’s had been. But whether her husband was Welsh or Norman, she would be her own woman, with her own power. She spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words. “If it is possible to rule a man, I would like to learn. I will not live as my mother does.”

  Arabella stood and laid her hand on Mati’s cheek. She turned the girl’s face to the light, studying her eyes. She smiled at what she saw there. “No, my lady. I believe you never will.”

  Chapter Three

  Spring, 1106

  Mati stood looking out of her window as Roland’s party rode up on their warhorses. She saw his entourage and Sir Richard of Dorset’s men riding behind him. She heard the thunder of their horses’ hooves as they crossed the wooden drawbridge, and she smiled.

  She pulled the gold fillet her mother had given her out of its delicate wooden box and sat down in front of her polished silver mirror, adjusting the fillet in her hair. Her long dark hair fell straight down her back, as was the fashion for a maiden of her rank. She stood and smoothed the soft wool of her new red overdress, adjusting the heavy belt around her waist so that the skirt fell in graceful folds. Arabella had told her that the vibrant red went well with her black hair. Roland would not even recognize her. She stopped smiling. It was not likely that she would recognize him either, after six years apart.

  Mati waited until the men were in the great hall, their horses led away to the inner stables. She heard the low murmur of their voices as she stood on the landing above the hall. She had chosen this day to begin to practice the lessons Arabella had taught her. She needed an audience, and Roland had brought her one.

  Mati squared her shoulders, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the shortness of her breath as she started down the staircase. She was conscious of the awkwardness of her long skirts and heavy clogs for the first time in a year, and focused her mind on keeping her steps graceful. A lady should glide as she enters a room, Arabella had told her. Mati thought of gliding.

  She stepped down on the last step of the staircase and found a man at arms staring at her as if he were hypnotized, as if he had not seen her just that morning as she came down to breakfast. She smiled at him, feeling the first thrill of power, and lowered her eyes. She felt him watching her as she walked away.

  Mati surveyed the room for the next man to practice on, knowing that she should go and find Roland, but she wanted to test herself first without her old friend watching. She had not gone another three steps before she found a man staring at her as he sat by the fire.

  Her pulse quickened, and a delicious warmth spread from her abdomen to all her limbs. Mati ignored her own reaction as she strolled across the long hall, careful to avoid any bones that might be lying in the rushes. She felt the eyes of every man in the hall on her as she walked, but she saw only the man by the fire.

  “Greetings, my lord. I hope you had a pleasant journey.” Her voice was sweet and pitched low, and she saw the man’s eyes grow hot.

  “Mati?”

  She blinked as if someone has slapped her. His voice was different, but she would have known it anywhere. “Roland?”

  She laughed, and all the men in the hall stopped speaking to listen to her. She had the deep laugh of a courtesan, and she had trained herself so well that she no longer had any other. She reached out and touched Roland’s arm lightly, with her fingertips. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

  She looked into his eyes then, and she could see in their depths the little boy she had played with years ago. Then he stood, and the little boy was gone, and a man stood in his place, towering over her like a great tree. She moved to take a step back, but he caught her in his arms.

  “Mati! My God, you look like a girl!”

  She laughed for joy for the first time since he had left her six years before, and he laughed, too, clasping her waist and swinging her around in an arc.

  “Roland, put me down. If Mother sees me frolicking, she’ll have my head.”

  He set her down and took a step back to look at her. “So you’re a lady now, is that it?”

  Mati smiled. “I am. You look so different….”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  Roland’s dark eyes were still hot as he looked at her, and the same warmth spread through her as when she had first seen him and thought him a stranger.

  “Can you still shoot a deer at twenty paces?” he asked.

  “I haven’t been hunting since winter, but…” Her smile turned sly, and she looked up at him through her lashes. “I could still do it then.”

  He laughed. “We’ll have to sneak out while I’m home, and take down a buck.”

  She laughed with him. “Don’t expect me to give you the first shot at him.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek. The warm calluses on his palm felt good against her skin, and she was sorry when he took his hand away. “I’ll let you have the first shot, since you’re a lady now.”

  She laughed and punched him hard, but his arm was so solid with muscle that he did not seem to feel it. He was reaching for her with large hands, no doubt to trap her under his arm as he had when they were smaller, when her mother walked over to them.

  “Roland. I am glad you are home.”

  He bowed formally to Margaret, the laughter gone from his face. “My lady.”

  Margaret curtseyed to him, and allowed him to kiss her hand. The wedding band of rough gold on her middle finger looked heavy, and reminded Mati of a shackle.

  Her mother’s voice was soft when she spoke. “Come, daughter. Let us leave the gentlemen to their mead and their talk of war.”

  “Most of our talk is not fit for ladies’ hearing, madam.” A young man with soft blond hair appeared at Margaret’s side, nodding to Roland as he took his place with the group. His blue eyes did not leave Mati’s face. She smiled at him, and took note of his reaction before she lowered her eyes. Ruling men was far easier than Arabella had told her it would be.

  “Good afternoon, Roland, Gregory.” Margaret nodded to them, leading Mati away.

  Gregory spoke quickly. “My lady, I hope that we will have the pleasure of your daughter’s company at dinner.”

  Mati looked up from the floor rushes to smile at Gregory. She did not speak, feigning shyness, and Margaret spoke for her. “Matilda will be at dinner, sir.”

  “I know the meal will be richer for it.”

  Mati almost laughed at his courtly language, but lowered her eyes again instead. As she turned to follow her mother out of the hall, she caught Roland frowning at her. She smiled back at him and winked before she strolled out of the room with the swaying walk that had been the first thing Arabella had taught her. She felt the men’s eyes on her as she left. As she reached the top of the staircase, she saw that Roland was still watching her from the hall below.

  Mati brought her lute to the hall that night and after the evening meal, she sang a few songs very sweetly. She chose innocent, girlish songs to please her stepfather, who leaned back in his chair and smiled at her. When she was finished, Sir John spoke to his wife in a voice loud enough for all to hear. “My lady wife, your daughter follows your example in the gentle arts. You have trained her well.”

  “I thank you, my lord.” Margaret said, her eyes downcast. Mati smothered a smile and forced herself not to look at Arabella, in case she might laugh out loud. Instead, she met Roland’s gaze across the hall. His eyes were bright with the s
ame heated light they had held that afternoon.

  Mati looked away from Roland at once. She did not want to use her hard won tricks on him. As she stood to leave the hall, she found him still staring at her. She smiled at him as she passed his chair, and he caught her hand.

  “Mati.” His voice was low, and she had to lean down to hear him.

  “Yes, Roland?” She met his eyes and her breath caught in her throat. His eyes were dark in the firelight, holding flecks of gold lit like sparks.

  He held her hand, and for a long moment she was afraid he would not speak. When he did, his voice was rough. “There is a dance tomorrow.”

  “I know. Even the servants will have their own dance out under the stars to celebrate your homecoming.” She smiled, trying to keep her tone light, but she found herself breathless at his nearness. She had to concentrate to keep her voice even.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night then.”

  “No hunting tomorrow?” she teased him. “I thought we might take down a buck.”

  “No. I have men’s business with my father.”

  “Then I’ll see you in the evening.” She leaned down and kissed his cheek lightly, her hair falling over her shoulder and brushing his face. He took a lock of it between his fingers.

  “You smell like honey and pressed flowers.”

  She lightly touched his hand with her small one and gently pulled her hair from his fingers. “Good night, Roland.”

  She turned and walked up the stairs without looking back. Arabella met her at the top of the staircase. “My lady, have a care on whom you use your wiles.” Her warning came in her soft voice, but Mati heard the urgency under the softness.

  She looked back down over the hall and found not just one man staring after her. “What do you mean, Ara? Isn’t this what you taught me?”

  “Yes.” Arabella drew her young charge into the shadows of the upper hall. “But I did not intend for you to use them on your brother.”

  Mati’s smile died, and she met her teacher’s eyes. “He is not my brother. Roland is my friend.” She kissed her teacher gently on the cheek and went into her bedroom and shut the door.