The Marriage Bed (The Medieval Knights Series), page 13
But he could not.
What he could do was share Isabel's burden of guilt and blame; he could not allow her to bear the weight of so much false guilt. Let her see the man she had pledged her life to, not this youth she had admired from afar. She had wanted the image of him. Let her see him as he was.
"You have done nothing which requires forgiveness," he said to her bent form. "I bear you no enmity. Face me, Isabel, and read my face. You will see that it is so."
She lifted her head, the moonlight shining off her tear-streaked face, her eyes black with hurt and darkness. Isabel... her emotions ran so wild and hot.
"My decision to join the Benedictine brothers had naught to do with you," he said from his side of the room. He would not stand near her, not when he could smell his seed on her and see her breasts gleaming white through the dark snakes of her hair. He knew himself better than to stand near.
"What, then?" she asked, her voice a croak. He could see that she did not believe him; her memory and her dreaming had told her another tale, which placed her at the center. But it was a dream that wounded, and he would not stand idle while Isabel suffered hurt. The fault was not hers, but his. She must see that.
"What did you see when first you saw Malton?" he asked gently.
Isabel studied him, her tears slowing, before she shrugged listlessly and answered, "A fine hall of darkish stone dominating a strong river."
"I saw my destiny," he said. "I saw the place where I would make my name."
"All young boys would see it so," she said.
Richard looked into her eyes and said, "But I was going to make it so. 'Twas no idle dreaming for me; Malton was where I must and would prove myself."
"And you did."
Richard looked beyond her, out to the moon, well above the clouds now, shining white and strong, the only light in the night sky. She did not understand. She had placed him too high.
"It was difficult at first for me there. At Malton. I do not mingle easily. I cared only about my task, that of becoming a great knight. I had no time for games or the jokes one boy plays upon another." He would not tell her of the ribaldry that followed him when her devotion to him became obvious; whatever chance he had hoped for to bond with another squire had been snuffed out with her adoration. Yet he did not fault her; it was her nature, and her intent had been innocent of evil. "Henley marked my devotion to advancing my skills and drew me in, close to his side. You remember?"
"I remember he thought well of you and that he spoke of you fondly."
"Like a father."
"Yea, like a father," she agreed.
"Bertrada, his lady wife, she also... drew me in."
"They were both pleased with you. I do remember it," she said. She did remember it as she was so often in Bertrada's bad graces for not attending to her duties. But she had not wanted to sew; she had wanted to follow Richard.
"She was a worthy lady, did you not think? So generous and gracious. So beautiful," he said, his voice trailing off. He looked down at his hands, clenched into fists before him. "I worked hard, thinking to please her."
"And Henley."
"Aye," he said jerkily, "and Henley."
"And you did," she said, her tears dried upon her cheeks so that all that remained was the glimmer where they had been. “You did well at Malton. You won your spurs."
"I won my spurs," he said woodenly. "I did not achieve my goal. Or at least, I did not make the name for myself I had imagined when first I beheld Malton as a youth."
Isabel was at a loss. Richard was making no sense. She did not even know the words to ask. But Richard did.
"Did you not note, you who were ever at my heels, how often Bertrada came near? She understood my determination. She understood what was in my heart—words a youth can hardly think to form. With her I felt..." His voice trailed off. "I felt..." he said softly. Valued? Understood? He did not know the word for what she had made him feel, not then and not now.
Whatever the word, sin had been the result.
"I committed a cardinal sin. That is why I joined the Benedictines," he said finally, his tone clipped and cold.
A cardinal sin? Isabel ticked them off in her mind, thinking Richard was surely exaggerating. Pride. Envy. Sloth. Intemperance. Avarice. Ire. Lust.
Nay, he would not have clouded his soul with any cardinal sin... though perhaps he edged close to the sin of pride.
His words echoed in her mind. He had felt... something... in Bertrada's company. A tickle of warning ran along her ribs and settled in her middle. When did Richard ever speak of "feeling"? Richard was duty and purpose; he did not prate on about "feeling." He had never confessed to "feeling" anything for her, and she was his wife. The woman he had kissed with a raging passion when she had been promised to another.
She had been promised to another. His very brother.
The tickle turned hard and heavy within her, like the weight of a hand pressing down.
How different the memory of their kiss looked when turned upon itself.
How much honor lay in a man who would display his ardor for a woman who could never be his?
All the words came together in her mind then, in just the correct ordering.
Lust.
Bertrada.
Benedictine.
Isabel flinched against the horror of it, shaking her head, willing away the truth. It could not be so. Yet Richard said it was so, in his awkward way.
He had lusted after Bertrada, his lord's wife, the untouchable woman in the center of Malton's orbit. She was mother to them, lady to the same lord Richard had sworn to uphold. It was akin to incest; had Richard not gone to Malton at the age of ten? It was certainly adultery with the one woman among them who could not, must not, be touched.
Bertrada had taught her, trained her to be a noble lady and blameless wife. And Bertrada had copulated with Richard.
"It is why you left Malton so abruptly?" she managed to ask, determined that he say it, confess it to her openly.
"Yea," he only said.
And she knew it for the truth. Richard had run to the Benedictine brotherhood to expiate his sin with a lifetime of prayer and service. It had not been because of their single kiss; she had been so naive, so foolish to place such import on a single, chaste kiss. She was a fool. Had they shared a love, a passion, that could not be fulfilled? Nay, he had respected no such boundary with Bertrada. There had been no boundary with Bertrada. He could not resist Bertrada.
It came to her then, sitting upon her marriage bed in the dark, that she had been flattered beyond measure to think that Richard had given up his spurs because of thwarted love for her. There was sin in such pride, and she was reaping her penance now.
But that was not the worst of tonight's confession. The room was dark and Richard a darker shadow within it, the moon long since beyond their sight, yet she could see all as bright as day. Richard could not hide from this truth, no matter the depth of the darkness, and neither could she.
"But hiding in the monastery, cloistered among the brothers, did not work, did it, Richard?" she asked, her voice hard and unrelenting. "You love her still."
Chapter 17
He spent the night in prayer, in the chapel. It was almost as if he had never left the monastery. Except that instead of wrestling with his succubus, he had wrestled—and bedded—his wife. Isabel. Her tears clung to him still, no matter that the dawn was sliding up the sky. It was time for Matins, and for the first time in a year, he was not eager for another hour of prayer.
He truly was a married man.
And he had spent the night on a cold floor when a bed and wife were within reach.
She had charged him with loving Bertrada. Still, after all he had confessed, she did not understand the man she had wed. She attributed love as the cause of what had gone between him and Bertrada. Isabel—such an innocent, to think that love must precede fornication. Love Bertrada he did not; not even at his most innocent had he believed he loved her. Desired her? Yea, it had come to that, and he had acted on his desire, as he had acted on his desire with Isabel when he had unleashed his passion on her in their solitary kiss. His was a sin most deep. He battled lust daily, knowing himself to be insufficient to the battle, losing daily. Hourly.
Isabel was angry. Her pride had been wrenched from her by his confession, to lie as bloody and torn on their marriage bed as her maidenhead; this he had done to her, with his words and with his hands. A night of prayer had not absolved him of his sin with his wife of a day. She had wanted to believe that their kiss had driven him into the holy brotherhood; such thoughts would well please a young woman in love with an unattainable man. Now she had been told he had not been running from her, and such knowledge would dig deep into pride.
And he had hurt her. Their coupling had not gone well. The performance of his duty had been a disaster. She had not been ready for him. Ready? With her tears fresh on her cheeks and her hands pulling at his, scrambling to be free of him and of the marriage bed? Nay, she had not been ready. But he had. He could not have waited longer. His need, his hunger, had been hard upon him, and his duty had compelled him to proceed, even against her unreadiness. God knew he was such a man as to take a woman unready. And now, Isabel knew as well.
Tonight would be better. Tonight he would not fail. Isabel deserved better, even from such a man as he knew himself to be.
Richard stood, his knees stiff from a night of kneeling, and turned to leave the chapel.
Tonight would be better. She was no longer a virgin. Her fears were behind her. He would not fail her tonight.
He would not fail.
With that thought, Richard walked out of the chapel with a smile on his face. Those who saw him wondered at the change a night of marriage had wrought in their new lord and smiled in return.
* * *
Isabel was not among their number.
Isabel awaited the dawn alone in her chamber, sitting upon the great bed of the Lord of Dornei with her arms clasped around her knees and her face turned to the wind hole. Thus she had spent the night. She rocked herself gently, humming beneath her breath, searching for comfort and finding none.
What comfort with Richard as husband?
Tears sprang fresh and fell from her eyes; she did naught to stop them. To what purpose, when they only fell again? Never had she imagined that marriage to Richard would bring anything but joy and yet now she knew that she would never feel joy again. Joy had flown by her, to stay out of reach until she was caught up in the clouds with Christ. Would that she could fly now, fly away from here, out over the fields and forests until Dornei was just a dark speck on the sodden horizon. God, let her fly away. Away from all her misery. The Lord seemed of a mind to answer her prayers; perhaps He would answer this impossible request for deliverance.
Yet, if her fortune ran true, she would be caught, hooded, and kept chained to her master's hand. As she was now chained to Richard throughout this life. Such joy at the thought yesterday; such sorrow today.
And all because Richard loved another.
Isabel turned from the window and all thoughts of escape and pressed down the pain that rose like the sun to sweep through her, burning away all hope of happiness.
He loved Bertrada.
The words would not cease repeating themselves in her mind to echo in her heart.
He loved Bertrada.
It was sin at its most blatant. He could not love Bertrada, not in that way, not with touch most intimate and kiss most profane. Courtly love, yes; such was allowed, even encouraged, but never this. Never adultery. Incest.
How had it come to this? Where was the boy who had caught her cheating at chess and laughed at her deception? To marry Richard had been to marry the only person who had caught hold of her heart, understanding her thoughts and moods as no other. He was the man she had wanted even when he had cast her off, for she had believed—nay, she had known—that he loved her. There had been no hope for them, and so he had turned from her though he had loved her. And she, not strong enough to turn away from the sight and presence of Richard, had loved him.
The Richard she had loved could never have committed so foul a sin, the Richard she loved was honor and duty and purpose most resolute. The Richard she loved...
Isabel sighed and slid off the bed to stare out of the wind hole. The Richard she loved did not exist. She had created him, created him out of fair looks and lean visage, out of dreams and sighs and girlish memories. He did not exist, this man she had loved so long from so great a distance. She could not love a man who would so foul his vows of honor and duty, who would kiss a young girl with such passion while bedding another.
Yea, there lay the heart of her misery. He had lied to her. All had been lies. The bond she had believed they shared beyond any two people in the world—a lie. His laughter—a lie. His purity—a lie. His devotion to duty and perfection and accomplishment—a lie. The very character of the man she had set her heart on—a lie that tore her heart from her to be cast out of the wind hole, to fall and fall and shatter. All had been a lie. His kiss had been a lie and she had believed him. Nay, more than believed, she had set her world around him, he the sun to her every day. It had all been deception and deceit. He had lied to her with every breath and every step and every reluctant glance. She had seen and watched and studied only him, the world shrunk to him and his deeds. What dark deeds he had committed while she watched and saw only what she wished to see.
He loved Bertrada.
The feeling of being trapped weighed heavily, crushing her more completely with each painful realization. She had been betrayed. She had been a fool.
He had never loved her. He had never wanted her. Yea, he had kissed her, probably out of pity at her foolish and naive infatuation with him. She saw that now, now that she cared to see the truth of all his years of avoidance of her, of his carefully downcast eyes, his mumbled responses, his running retreat whenever she had tracked him down. But then, she had not cared to see. She had seen only Richard. Richard had seen only Bertrada.
Even with his confession, it was impossible to think of them together, though she could not drive the shadowy images from the deepest corners of her thoughts. It was impossible to believe that the man she had held in such high honor, who carried himself with such pride, had stolen the virtue of Henley by soiling his wife. Small wonder he had fled to the abbey. No matter how deep his fall into sin, Richard was a man of honor—this she knew though all the evidence spoke otherwise. She could not have been so far wrong in her knowledge of him, could she? Was he not a man who valued honor and duty above all?
How hard and fast she clung to the lie of her memory when the deceiver Richard was stood before her. He had sinned with Bertrada. By his own lips, he had confessed it.
And such a sin. Having been given by his father into Henley's household, Richard had become part of that house, his honor bound to Malton and to Henley. His sin had stripped honor from them both. He had defiled his lord's marriage bed.
He had defiled hers.
This Richard she knew not. This Richard was not the husband she wanted. How well would God hear that prayer?
The sun had topped the trees, lighting the day. The trees, washed clean yesterday, shimmered green in the morning sun, their color darker, truer, than just yesterday. So much could change in a day.
She turned from the wind hole and walked across the stone floor, ignoring the cold seeping into her feet; such small discomfort as cold feet she could easily ignore. Opening her trunk, she lifted out the first bliaut that came to her hand; it was old, a gown of her mother's that had been reworked for her years ago. The soft red of the finely worked wool brought a smile to her lips; such lovely memories she had of seeing her mother in this gown. She had been a child, easily tucked under her mother's arms to bury her face in a warm bosom, her problems small and her mother's love a great bastion against all pain and all disappointment.
It was the perfect gown to wear on such a day as this, for now she was no longer a child. She had left the naive child she had been on the soiled sheets of her marriage bed. The child Isabel had died with the same blow that had killed her love—nay, it had been mere infatuation—for Richard. That Isabel, foolish and hopeful, was dead. It was a woman who faced the day, a woman who would not live in the lie of dreams. A woman who did not love Richard.
Chapter 18
He had heard her tears. Any who had an ear to hear would have heard her heart-wrenching sobs and pleas of the night before. His had been such an ear.
He had not dared intrude upon them, their conjugal duty a private thing that required no human intervention, but he had prayed that God would be merciful and Richard gentle in his dealings with Isabel.
He was not certain how God had answered his prayers.
When Isabel exited her chamber, he would be waiting, to offer comfort if needed.
Isabel came out then, and from the look of her, she did seem in need of... something.
"Good morrow, Father," she said calmly.
"Good morrow, Isabel," Father Langfrid answered somewhat tenuously.
Isabel did not stop to chatter with him about her conjugal night. Isabel did not throw herself into his arms and sob out her confusion. Isabel did not grin and proclaim her victory to God and the world in claiming Richard as husband, true and proper. Any of these responses he would have expected, perhaps each in its course; yet Isabel did none of these. Isabel preceded him down the stairs, her head erect and her step stately; her mouth closed. Langfrid did not know how to speak to this Isabel.
