Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances

by Lindsay Townsend

  "You are not to judge." Said more harshly than she intended.

  "No." He smiled and offered his arm. "May I escort you to your tent?"

  She remained unmoved. "I will not be any man's prize." She had not broken the shackles of her serfdom for that.

  "Not even your lover's?"

  Ranulf expected her to protest, or deny his question. Instead she confounded him afresh by replying, "Perhaps," an exasperating answer that made him wish he had looked at her properly while she was unveiled.

  "Who is he?" Even as he knew he was being stupid, driven by jealousy, Ranulf touched the rough knot where she had tied the sleeve, as if he would strip her face then and there. "Who sees you, princess?"

  If it was Giles, he would maul him, best him, beat him.

  Without waiting for her answer, he dragged her into his arms.

  "I am in mourning!" She closed her eyes, refusing to look at him. She was fragile in his grip but unyielding, like a killing knife. "And I am not your wife!"

  A scald of rage broke through him like a bursting blister, followed by horror. He shook with the force of both emotions where he wanted to compel her.

  "Master yourself." Her scorn ripped down his back like a flail.

  "You ask much, madam," he said, and her eyes opened, giving him a fleeting glimpse of regret, but not fear. "If you were my maid, I would take you back into the bath-house and dunk you in a tub."

  "Good, for it would rid me of these wretched fleas!"

  In her answer, he saw maid and princess and he laughed, lifted out of his temper in the knowledge he had at last her full attention and he was facing all of her. "You are such a little liar. One day, I may put you over my lap and smack your bottom very soundly for all those lies."

  Taking advantage of her rare silence, he lifted her off her feet, warning, "We go this way, princess, back to your tent, and you can travel in comfort, in my arms, or over my shoulder." Part of him, the base part, wished she would struggle, so he could carry out his threat.

  "Being in mourning does not mean I have forgotten how to walk."

  "The ground is dusty and your feet are bare—had you forgotten that?"

  She smiled. He did not know how he knew that, with the red sleeve wound about the lower half of her face, but he felt her rest her head more comfortably into the crook of his arm.

  Ignoring the leering guard, he walked very slowly with her through the postern gate.

  As Edith had expected, the great tent was empty. She could tell at once by the silence about the place; a feeling of neglect she had encountered before, in pestilence-stricken hamlets. “My lord —” She squirmed in his arms, alarmed that Ranulf would carry her inside and see the lack of pallets, benches, cups, plates, clothes, for himself.

  Instead, he let her down immediately outside the entrance, remarking, "I will come for you later, to witness the contest."

  His certainty irked her. "I may not be here."

  Unerringly, although she was veiled, he took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. “You cannot go on as you are,” he said, very gentle but also very sure of himself. “Do you want to settle this now? Go to Sir Giles, or whoever your lover is? If the fellow will have you.”

  The idea that any would refuse her made Edith incandescent. “You are insolent!” She tried to jerk her face away but, humiliatingly, could not move. “Unhand me, sir!”

  “In a moment, Princess. When you have considered this. You are a woman alone, in a man‘s camp.”

  He brushed her cheek with his large hand, clearly enjoying tracing the outline of her features, as he had before, when he had kissed her. She longed to kiss him afresh, or knee him in the balls, but after she had escaped him, what then? How far would she get in this camp of men? And he was still absently caressing her face, a distracting movement that should have made her angry but instead made her feel as if that whole side of her body was prickling and tingling—pleasingly so.

  “Are your folk sick in that tent, is that why none have come out to greet you?”

  Edith swallowed: returned in a jolting rush to her present danger. He was too quick and saw too much. “My maid is close to giving birth.”

  “Not your little maid in brown, then.”

  “No.” Conscious of her smallness beside him, the aptness of all he had said, Edith felt herself grow hotter still. She wished he would leave, give her some respite and peace before the rest of today. “Are you going to let me go?”

  He finally released her and took a step back. “This is your last chance, princess. Will you go to Giles now?”

  Why should he persist in thinking that such a brute was her lover? Choking on the idea, Edith shook her head, unable to speak as memories of Sir Giles’s cruelty overwhelmed her.

  “No? You will submit to me, then, as my prize?”

  “You have not won yet,” she shot back.

  “But we both know I will, princess. Will you watch me fight?”

  She would not pander to his vanity. “I am in mourning.”

  “Of course. And I will fight well today, to honour your dead lord.”

  He bowed to her and turned to stride down the field, calling back, “I will send men to guard you in your tent today, princess, and call on you this evening.”

  When she was very sure he was out of hearing, Edith sat down in the middle of her bare tent, tore off her make-shift veil and began to cry.

  Later, she tried to take stock. Her people had taken their things but left her outlandish clothes hanging off the guide ropes of the tent. They had left her a small bed, too, and all the gifts of coins and jewels from the knights. Someone, and she suspected Maria's hand in this, had even left her a small brazier and a pot full of some rich stew, ready for her to re-heat. Touched by this, Edith found she was sniffling again, wishing she was not alone.

  There was a scratching outside on the flaps and she froze, dreading another visit from Giles. "A moment, please!" she called out, hastily wiping her eyes, hurrying to retrieve the discarded long sleeve.

  But the tent flap opened and Teodwin ducked back inside, followed closely by Maria. Amazed, Edith sat back on her heels as most of her people tramped back into the tent, all carrying and then depositing their things.

  "We had a meeting on the road," Maria said, rubbing her swollen belly and settling down awkwardly on the nearest stool.

  "Everyone had a say, even the youngsters," Teodwin admitted. Busy checking the guide ropes, he produced a hammer from his pack to secure one that was sagging. "A few—Henry, David, Solomon, Bella, those with children—found a place with good land," he went on, between hammer blows. "The lord there is keen to have them and will pay good wages."

  "So they stayed." Edith understood. It had happened before on their travels. Villagers found other hamlets where the pestilence had swept in and taken laborers and the survivors were eager for them to stay. "We should visit them in a year or so, see how they fare."

  "That was the arrangement," Teodwin agreed. "The rest of us —” He shrugged and nodded to the tent. "We like this world. And we missed you, Edee."

  The nickname, given her by the children of Warren Hamlet, made her eyes fill again. Teodwin opened his arms and she staggered into them, crying harder than ever as he patted her head and said "Now then! Now then!" in a way that her old husband would have done. She sobbed with mingled relief and fear and found herself crying, "He means to take me and now you, too, as his prize!"

  "What?" Teodwin yanked on her hair plait to make her look at him. "What is this?"

  "Not our old master, at least," Maria dropped in slyly, "Or she would be fleeing, not crying."

  "The black knight?" Teodwin demanded, giving her hair another tug. "Is it Sir Ranulf? Are those his men outside?"

  Edith nodded, easing her plait away from his shovel-like hands. His less-than-gentle treatment was a contrast to Ranulf, she realized, who had always treated her as if she was as fragile as a lily. Suddenly she missed Ranulf's warm, rough-yet-tender hands and ev
en more, his kisses.

  When he comes this evening, I will remind him that he owes me kisses.

  "Good," said Teodwin, turning away to help Walter carry in a pallet. "That should see us settled."

  "And safe," Maria added, as she pointed to the brazier and stew-pot. "I am hungry. When can we eat?"

  "As soon as I have made a fire." Her spirits lifting more and more, Edith hurried to do just that.

  Ranulf comes this evening, and he will come by way of the stream. I will wait for him there, in another guise.

  At sunset, Ranulf rode Hector through the camp, acknowledging the cheers of victory by fisted salutes. Giles had yelled something as he had gone down, but he had yielded, so that was no matter.

  He had won, Sir Tancred's war horse was still fresh, and he and Hector were eager for more.

  "A dip in the stream, eh lad?" That would irk the princess, too. He could flick water over her bare middle. The thought was sweetly tormenting.

  He passed the little beech tree and looked there, as he always did, and now his heart stampeded in his chest. She was there: the maid in brown, peeping out from the branches but plainly watching for him, for she instantly turned her back.

  Chuckling, Ranulf allowed Hector to canter at his own pace to the tree, swung out of the saddle and tethered him to another sapling.

  "I would have brought feed for him, too, sir, had I known."

  Her voice was lower, less sing-song, and her manner altogether more quiet. He could not see her clearly, half-hidden as she was by the low branches of the tree.

  "Hector will wait for his supper. He, like me, will live on his triumph." Ranulf ducked, cracking through branches, amused as she stepped back into deeper cover. Less sure of me and yourself, eh?

  "I have a message from my mistress."

  He could see her hand hovering around her mouth and felt tender to her. For the first time he wondered how old she was and how much she knew, truly, of women and men.

  "Here." He passed her his cloak. 'Wrap yourself in that, for we are going riding. I wish to pray at the shrine for Sir Tancred."

  He knew that whatever her lack of faith, or odd beliefs, she would not refuse to take part in such an act and indeed she swiftly covered herself and emerged from the shadows into the fading sunlight.

  "Come then." He held out his hand.

  Chapter 15

  He put her before him on the saddle, where she had always ridden behind Sir Tancred. Her thighs and groin pressed closely against the pommel and his long, powerful thighs and boulder-hard belly were tight against her back and rump. She could feel his arousal and was savagely pleased that he too suffered.

  "Tell me your name," he said, as each jolting step of the horse shivered up and down her spine and rocked her intimately against him.

  "I am Edith." She fought not to rub herself against his lap.

  "Edith of lilies. Hush, now!" He ran his hand down her trembling arm, kissing her ear through the cloth of her head-and-face covering. "I swear you have nothing to fear from me. Let us be at peace this evening."

  Edith wet her parched lips with her tongue. Before she had closed her eyes, the better to savour his embrace, she had glimpsed a cross and garlands of dying flowers, set into a tall bank of soil. "Did we not just pass the shrine?"

  She felt his laughter throb against her back. "Well spotted. I thought you too distracted to notice, as in truth am I."

  He brushed her other arm with his other hand. When she leaned into his caress he said softly, "If I have you tonight and we make a child, it will be a sign from God that we should be together."

  "And if we do not?" Edith knew she should protest and be indignant but she was not so much of a hypocrite. Her whole body was tingling with desire as she yearned for more.

  He reached around her and tickled her belly. "Then I think we should try again."

  I should not be doing this. Edith pressed herself back against him. He was so hard and warm and he smelled sweet and salty together. She wanted to lick him all over. "So do I," she whispered, and she wriggled in the saddle, bumping against him. For a wild, almost drunken moment, she imagined their making love even as they were, Ranulf dragging up her skirt and entering her as she lay half-sprawled across the stallion's flanks.

  He growled and tightened his grip on her. They both dug their heels into Hector's sides, encouraging the great charger to lunge past the high field banks as they swung this way and that in the saddle, seeking out a gap in the banks where they might be together.

  "There!" Ranulf growled, snapping the reins. Edith saw nothing but a blur of shadows and felt her ears popping as the horse moved downwards on a steep, twisting path. Before they crashed into a massive wild rosebush, Ranulf drew rein and she was off Hector and in his arms, his mouth colliding with her shoulder as he tried to kiss her.

  "I would see your face," he murmured, running his hands up and down her back.

  She shook her head, her hands flying to protect the "veil" of his cloak.

  "I may see the rest of you but not what you share every day with your mirror?"

  It was the sadness in his eyes and not the temper in his voice that made her lunge upwards, tighter into his arms.

  "I am more than a face." Let him acknowledge that first.

  "To be sure you are, and truly, if it is against your custom..."

  He stopped as her fingers closed on the first pin of his cloak. Looking always into his dark, deep eyes, she felt for the clasp that would release the pin.

  "Dada. Da—"

  The child's cry was faint but they both stiffened, listening, and then broke apart to search.

  "Here little one," Ranulf called, crouching to peer beneath the huge rose.

  "We are coming," Edith called, in every dialect she knew.

  Ranulf pointed and froze like a hunting dog. Edith guessed that the hairs on the back of his neck were up, for hers were the same. Tottering from beneath a rowan tree with orange berries were two tiny children. Dressed in torn, filthy tunics and shoes far too large, they were brother and sister, Edith guessed. The smaller of the youngsters had the longer hair, but what colour that hair was she could not tell. Leaves, cobwebs and dung clung to the pair.

  She sensed a movement and flinched, half-expecting Ranulf to shoo them off or stalk away, but he had crouched to make himself less threatening. Stilling her own questions, Edith knelt and beckoned.

  The children did not yet have the glazed look of hunger she had seen and known herself, in the past, but they were already beyond fear. The girl pointed at the flask on Ranulf's belt and the boy stepped ahead to snatch it first.

  "There is enough for two," Ranulf said softly.

  "Drink slowly," Edith warned, in an old dialect she had learned from her husband's mother.

  The boy glanced at her, possibly understanding, but he still seized the flask, only to be stopped from drinking by Ranulf.

  "She first," he said with a frown. "Our ladies should be allowed to go first."

  "He will not understand," Edith said quickly, as she made a "cup" with her hands and Ranulf poured ale into them before finally allowing the lad to have the flask. "He is a boy. He will always have been first and eaten first, so he knows no different."

  Ranulf threw her a quizzical look before staring with something like horror as the girl lapped and slurped at Edith's hands like a half-starved animal. "You know a great deal about English peasants," he said slowly, his expression changing to pity as the child drank and drank. "I have been their lord for years and I did not know that."

  "When food is scarce the menfolk eat first. They must, for they must plough and hunt." Remembering she was not supposed to know these things, Edith shrugged. "It is the same everywhere."

  "So where are they from?" Leaving the lad tipping back the flask to extract every last drop, Ranulf rose to his feet. Shielding his eyes, he frowned again. "There is no smoke."

  "Where is your mother?" Edith asked the little girl. The child grinned and tottered closer
to cuddle her. Ignoring the stink, Edith cradled her.

  "I think you are now," Ranulf said wryly. "There is a path behind them. I can set them both on Hector and go down to whatever settlement there is left."

  Edith knew without him saying what he dreaded. A frisson of fear ran through her on a prickling track and then was gone. She had, after all, dealt with such sights and things before.

  "I will go," she said. "I know their language." She swung the child onto her hip and prepared to leave, holding out her hand to the boy.

  Her way was blocked.

  "You do not go alone," Ranulf said. "If these have wandered off and no one is seeking them or calling for them, then what is amiss down there? No smoke, so sounds. You know what it can be, Edith."

  "I know and I have seen it before. I have tended others." She answered his unspoken question. "Most died." Including my brother, who never harmed anyone. "But one who sickened lived, the oldest, and I lived, though I tended him." She felt a flea crawling on her, possibly sprung from the children, and she pinched it dead: she loathed fleas with a passion. "The pestilence does not seem to touch me," she admitted softly.

  Ranulf caught up the lad, who was clamouring and clutching at his leg, and put him onto his back. For an instant, she expected him to comment on her survival, or even to make a sign against the devil or the evil eye, but what he said was, "We should get down this track before nightfall, or we shall break our necks."

  He took Hector's reins and her hand and together, with the children, they set off.

  There were game traps set off the winding path, Ranulf noticed, and places under beeches where folk had herded pigs for the fall bounty of beech mast. There were steps cut in the stepper part of the track and, left against an ash coppice, a bow saw that had been forgotten.

  We are going to a village, so where are the people?

  Behind him, riding on his back but as light as a hollow bone, the grubby lad wiped his runny nose on the back of his best tunic. About to rebuke the boy, Ranulf recalled what Edith had said and held off. The child had learned no better. Who knew, besides, what he and his sister had already endured?