It was early, early enough that only hunters and hounds were stirring. Fergus was gone from my bed because he had left the morning before to hunt for three days.
I lay back, closed my eyes and fingered my lip. It stung still, though was not as swollen as I had feared.
It would seem that men, alive or dead, left me with few choices, then condemned me for whatever solution I found. This was my thanks, for showing the decisiveness of a man, for doing the labor of a man, for collecting the due that should have been collected by a man.
I had had two recurring dreams this winter, and I far preferred the one featuring a golden-haired scoundrel with lust in his eye and seduction in his touch, even if it did leave me red with shame upon awakening.
Just the thought of Gawain forced me from the bed, the site of my deception. I washed with haste, relieved to be able to avoid Fiona’s attentions. No doubt there was a bruise upon my lip and she—as Fergus’ cousin—would delight in telling me that I had gotten solely what I deserved. She had left the basin of water in my chamber the night before, because she was too lazy to do any deed in the morn, and for once I was glad of its icy chill.
Still my father’s accusation of sinfulness yet echoed in my thoughts, condemning me.
And yet unfair for all its core of truth. How I yearned to argue with him, to persuade him that my choice had been no choice but the sole chance of fulfilling his and my mother’s expectations! But my father had heeded no challenge to his conclusions while he lived, and I heartily doubted that death had changed the trait.
Still, I was irked. I had been taught from the cradle that the greater good had to prevail, that the needs of the many outweighed the desires of the individual. How dare my father haunt me for heeding his own counsel!
Had he not been the one to teach me to play chess, to teach me that one sometimes must sacrifice a lesser piece in order to protect the king?
And what lesser piece was there than a daughter who had not had the wits to be born a son? I flung down the washing cloth impatiently, restless with my lot, chafing with the tedious rota of duties that lay before me this morn.
Every morning. From the morn of my tenth birthday until the day I breathed my last, I was responsible for an endless array of tasks, none of which were important enough to merit praise when well done, all of which contributed to the sustenance of this keep, every one of which kept me as busy and fettered as a falcon tied to its post with a bone to worry.
When I rummaged discontentedly in my trunk for a clean chemise, a finger of sunlight touched the pomegranate forgotten in the corner, burnishing its leathery skin to a gleam.
It was as if my thoughts had coaxed the fruit into sight. I stared at it. I had not truly forgotten about it—although I had tried. It seemed a portent that it came to light on this day, on this day that I felt reckless and unappreciated. The pomegranate was smaller and harder than it had been, and I wondered whether it had spoiled.
I fetched my knife and sliced it open, gasping at the spill of glistening ruby pearls. They were as dark as blood and glistened like jewels. I ate half a dozen off the blade of the knife, the pungent taste making me close my eyes and revel in a forbidden memory.
Gawain. I saw again his golden skin, the ripple of muscle beneath his smooth flesh, the sun-drenched spill of his hair. I saw the mischievous glint in his green eyes, the quirk of his lips just afore he smiled, the rumble of his laughter when my fingertips lay across his chest.
And I smiled. He was an impossibly handsome man, his wit quick, his charm dangerously engaging. I had never met the like of him—and though I knew him to be a scoundrel, I had not been able to resist his allure. I had been enchanted when he spoke with such passion of the home he desired in Sicily. I had liked that he asked me about Aphrodite as if a woman could know something of merit. I had told myself that I seduced him the second time solely to suit my greater scheme, but the truth was that I could not have resisted his touch once he stood in my chamber.
My plan to distract Gawain in the most primitive way imaginable and thus retrieve the Titulus had been simple, hastily concocted, impetuous, and for the greater good of Inverfyre. It had been unspeakably bold, and I had felt a wicked tide of delight in my own scheme’s success. I had not, however, expected matters to become so complicated.
More to the point, I had not expected to like Gawain Lammergeier. I had not expected desire to unfurl within me when he caressed me. I had not known that any woman could feel such ardor. I had never imagined that matters between a man and woman could be so sweet, so tender, so exhilarating. I had not known that I could be so wanton, so bold and so unrestrained in my response.
I had briefly been another woman, one without cares, one filled with passion, one I could envy even as I disapproved of her comport. It was no wonder he had invited me to be his harlot—I had behaved as one with astonishing ease.
Indeed, I was yet amazed that this wanton and I were one and the same. The taste of pomegranate recalled—with unwelcome clarity—the rasp of Gawain’s tongue upon my nipples, his kisses upon my belly, the sweet stickiness of the fruit’s juice upon my flesh. I caught my breath in memory of the love play we had made and my mouth, despite the fruit within it, went dry.
He had made it so easy to forget that I had no right to any desires beyond those demanded of me by my birthright. He had made it so easy to believe that my fate was unfairly cast.
And still, I could not shake my conviction of that. Three months I had listened and watched for him, knowing I should not. Three months I had expected a reckoning over my last victorious possession of the Titulus, three months I had hoped for a rousing conclusion to our game.
But he was gone as surely the previous summer’s fruit. Worse, I knew that I should have anticipated as much. Did I not understand the manner of man he was?
The juice found the cut inside my swollen lip and stung mightily, reminding me to use the wits with which I had been born. Men like Gawain Lammergeier saw only to their own pleasures and their own reward. He was a thief and a scoundrel, a man whose absence I should not mourn and whose temptations I should not heed. Our interval had been sweet solely because it had been short, solely because I had wanted nothing from him that he had not been prepared to give.
I cast the pomegranate from the window, newly vexed by men. I tried to clean the ruby stains of fruit juice from my fingers, but to no avail. Like Gawain himself, its stain was not so readily shed as that.
I reached into the chest of garments, but my hand strayed away from my fine wool gown, seemingly of its own accord, and landed upon my old homespun kirtle with its faded woad dye. It was the most ancient and disreputable gown I owned. Fergus loathed it. I loved its softness, but ceded to his demand.
Not on this day. Defiance rose hot within me, rebellion and recklessness fast on its heels. The truth was that I felt somewhat disloyal to my spouse this morn. I touched my wounded lip with the tip of my tongue, then donned the kirtle.
Its weight upon my back seemed to feed my defiance. It was true I had made unconventional choices, it was true the men in my life had left me cornered, it was true I was yet convinced that I had served the greater good.
I would visit Adaira and ask her counsel, she who made only choices that defied convention, she who was reputed to be able to see the future, she who my mother had bidden me seek out.
It was an impulsive thought, and one I knew I should forget. But the prospect was too deliciously forbidden for me to resist on this morn. It was early, too early for lazy Fiona to stop me.
Further, the snow had melted away. I could leave no trail in the snow to condemn either Adaira or me. Fergus could not disapprove of what he did not know. His male kin had all ridden to the hunt with him, and they were the ones most inclined to whisper in his ear of my transgressions.
It seemed Dame Fortune was on my side. I braided my hair and tucked the braid into my chemise, for my midnight tresses would be readily recognized. I wound my homespun cloak around me and l
eft my chamber on stealthy feet.
To my delight, there were few souls in the hall, all of them taking advantage of the laird’s absence to sleep late. I slipped through them unobserved and darted down the path to the woods.
As I ran, my heart began to sing. I was free of Inverfyre’s walls, free without approval or a chaperone. The sun shone with vigor, the sky was the cleanest blue imaginable and there was a promise of spring in the wind.
I fairly danced along the forest path with an abandon I had not felt since I had welcomed Gawain between my thighs. Though I was late to defiance, I liked it well.
The forest spreads like a carpet below Inverfyre’s high tower, and appears endless to one who gazes down upon it from the high walls. In truth, it is riddled with paths and streams. It is here that old Adaira makes her home.
There was a time when my mother and I came often to see the old wise woman, a time when I knew the path to her abode as well as the lines in my own hand. That had changed one day, changed so suddenly and with such finality that even as a child I had known better than to question it.
Adaira’s is a hut in the deepest shadows of the forest, a shadow itself which any soul could easily walk past without seeing it. I had not been there in at least a decade, not for two decades with my mother, so was uncommonly pleased when I found my way directly there.
I hesitated just a step from the door, my hand already raised to knock. Perhaps, Adaira would not welcome me. Perhaps, my absence had insulted her.
I wondered at the wisdom of my visit, but it was too late.
“My lady?” she said softly, the sound of her voice making gooseflesh on my skin. Though I have known her since my childhood, she never calls me by my name.
My mother always said that the blind see more than the sighted, for their vision is in another realm. So it seems with Adaira. Her eyes are glazed with that bluish hue of thin milk and she holds her head oddly, but she always faces the person she addresses, even when the person has moved silently. When she fixes her blind stare upon me, her lips twisted in a cunning smile, I feel that she can see my very thoughts.
It is a most unsettling sensation.
My mother had also said that Adaira had been an uncommon beauty in her youth. I could recall none of this, for she had been blind and old even when I was a child. Her eyes still fascinated and repelled me.
I stood on the threshold, reluctant to invite myself into her abode. “I would ask for your counsel, Adaira.”
She nodded but once, then stepped back into the hut, leaving the door open between us. After a moment, I chose to enter, though I was uncertain how welcome I was. I shut the door of the hut behind me and the shadows closed around me like an embrace.
Adaira said nothing, but stirred the contents of her old iron pot, which was set over the glowing coals of an old fire. She had always stirred that pot when I came there as a child, always wore the same homespun shift of mustard hue, always had her hair tied back in a leather thong. The hut always smelled of precisely the same pleasant mix of earth and damp and nameless herbs.
Not for the first time, I had the whimsical thought that there was no passage of time in this hut, and I interrupted her at the same moment over and over again. Adaira was waiting for me, as always she had been, and she looked as always she had. Time might not have passed in this place. That was foolery indeed, for I knew that I was both older and taller, that at least a decade had slipped away since last I stood there.
“Counsel, from me?”
“Perhaps wisdom is a better word,” I said. “I have been compelled to make uncommon choices, as you oft have done, and am uncertain.”
Adaira chuckled at this, then bent over her pot. “Come here and take a deep breath.”
I did as I was bidden. It is pointless to defy Adaira’s commands and even more pointless to ask her any question outright.
I inhaled the rich scent of what seemed to be a rabbit stew, then stepped back to regard her with surprise. “I have never known you to eat meat.”
“And still I do not.”
“Where is Annelise?” I asked, peering again into the hut’s shadowy but vacant corners. “Does she yet abide with you? Or has she wed and moved away?”
Adaira’s lips tightened. “Annelise is dead.”
My lips parted, though no sound came forth. The old woman seemed to watch me struggle with this news, her expression shrewd. “I am sorry. I did not know…”
“A year ago, she died birthing a child got upon her by a man I will not name.”
“He did not wed her.”
Adaira shrugged. “It is of no import. My daughter is dead either way.”
Her manner was so final that I guessed the baby must have died as well. “You should have come to the village…”
“And to what purpose? That others could mock me, the finest midwife in all of Christendom, yet one unable to save her own child? I would not give them the pleasure.” She abruptly turned back to the stew. “I have prepared this for you,” she said, her words so measured that I understood we would speak of Annelise no more.
Then I realized what she had said. I had never before eaten in Adaira’s abode. “You knew I would come, even afore I did?”
“Some events are less a matter of personal choice than we would like to believe.” She fetched a carved wooden bowl with the surety of one who knows her surroundings well, ladled a generous portion of stew into it and pressed the bowl into my hands. In truth, it smelled delicious, the meat stewed with wild onions. I had eaten nothing this morn and my belly growled.
She smiled thinly. “Sit. Eat.”
I did as I was bidden, making short work of the unexpected feast. Adaira stirred the cauldron with such concentration that she might have been alone or unaware of my presence. I guessed that she mourned her daughter, for she and Annelise had been close.
When I put down the spoon, well sated, she spoke.
“Have you bled since Christmastide?”
I caught my breath. A child was both my greatest hope and my greatest fear, but Adaira spoke as casually as one might when discussing the hue of a cloak. I sat forward, desperate for whatever she might tell me, but spoke with care. “I seldom bleed in the winter, and have had false hope before.”
Adaira smiled coyly. “Perhaps the hope is only false when you plant a withered seed.”
How could she know of my digression? I swallowed before I could speak, and even though I decided she could not know the truth, my voice was strained. “I do not understand what you mean.”
Adaira laughed and I knew then that she knew about Gawain, though still I could not imagine how she could be so certain.
Instead of asking what she would not answer, I asked what I most wanted to know. “Are you certain that I carry a child? Is it a boy?”
She snorted, then shook her head. “You and your mother. A son, a son, a son. It was all she asked of me when she ripened with you.” Her voice turned harsh. “Whether it is a son or a daughter is of less import than if the child is hale.”
I was duly chastened. “Of course, I did not mean to imply otherwise…”
Adaira interrupted me with the old verse, her tone mocking.
“When the seventh son of Inverfyre,
Saves his legacy from intrigue and mire,
Only then shall glorious Inverfyre,
Reflect in full its first laird’s desire.”
To my astonishment, she then spat into the embers of the fire.
I sat straighter, affronted. “Do you deny that it is time for the seventh son of Inverfyre? It is my duty to be the vessel for that prophesied child…”
“You stole a man’s seed to beget the boy you carry.” Adaira clicked her tongue to chide me. “It is an ominous beginning to a life, to be the product of a woman’s deceit.”
“No one needs to know…”
Adaira laughed harshly. “Will they not guess? I, an old madwoman living in the woods, have guessed the truth! Do you think that no one will whisper if the
child is born fair of hair?” My heart leaped in terror. “You are all dark, all of you of Inverfyre.”
“Fergus’ hair is ruddy. It may have been fair when he was a child,” I argued with resolve. “All will be too relieved to ask questions.”
“People always ask questions,” she said tartly. “It is in our nature to not believe whatsoever we are told to be fact.”
“What else was I to do?” I demanded in frustration. “Five years I have been wed, and five years I have been barren. I saw a chance to conceive a child and I took it, though it is true that I did not consider the hue of the man’s hair.”
“Was that your sole reason to couple with that stranger?”
I flushed, though she could not see it.
Adaira laughed harshly. “You thought to use a man, as men use women every day, to use him, achieve your ends and then discard him. Do not deny that you thought to indulge your curiosity as well. But you are no fool, my lady. You cannot have believed that there would not be repercussions for your deed.”
“I thought all would be relieved…”
Adaira cleared her throat and interrupted me. “Do not mistake my warnings for more than what they are. I intend only to counsel you against folly. There are those who despise you, who would find pleasure in ensuring your fall.”
That was more true than I would have preferred.
“There are those who would hurt you apurpose,” she said, then touched my wounded lip with a gnarled fingertip. She moved so unerringly that I could not evade her. I do not doubt that she felt me flinch. “Why did Fergus do this?”
I was not surprised that she knew who had granted the blow. “I touched him more boldly than is my wont,” I admitted grimly. “I thought we might find pleasure together.”
“And so your deed already shows its price. You have had a taste of what can be, and it has spoiled your appetite for what you have.”
I averted my gaze. It is true that men go to whores to find pleasure. It is unseemly for a noblewoman to enjoy her bedding.
All's Fair in Love and War: Four Enemies-to-Lovers Medieval Romances Page 44