An Honorable Rogue (18 page)

One half of the central fire had some form of brick oven built over it and a gleaming copper vat had been let into the bricks. It was full of steaming water. Hanging over the other half of the fire from a chain attached to the roof ridge was a blackened cauldron. That too steamed gently. Ladles of varying sizes dangled from hooks on a wooden post, at the foot of which several wooden pails were stacked. Linen was airing on racks suspended from the ceiling. Exotic scents---jasmine, musk and sandalwood--mingled with more homely ones of rosemary, soapwort and sage.

A young girl approached. Her gaze was open and friendly and as innocent as a newborn lamb's. 'Benedict? Benedict Silvester?" she asked. She looked to be about twelve years old. More of Rose's tension ebbed away.

'Soaz, it is good to see you.' Ben bent to kiss the girl's cheek.

The girl's gaze moved to Rose and back to Ben. 'You want a bath?'

'Please.'

Rose jabbed Ben in the ribs.
'Two
baths, Ben. Remember we're having
separate
baths.'

Ben's dark eyes danced. 'Oh, I was hoping to persuade you to scrub my back..."

'Ben...' With a scowl. Rose tried to free her hand, but he had it fast. 'I'm warning you...'

'Relax,
mignonne.
If two baths are what you want, two baths are what we shall have.' He grinned at the little girl and shrugged. 'Two, if you please. I have to let Rose have her way, else she loses her dimples."

'Sir?'

'Yes, it is very sad, Soaz. I'm in love with her dimples, but whenever she is angered they go into hiding and I have the devil's own job to coax them out again.'

The girl Soaz seemed to be used to Ben and his ways, for she bit back a smile and gave him a little curtsy that Rose could see was deeply ironic. 'Yes, sir.' She turned to lead them towards the stalls. 'You'd like bath linens'?'

'Please. Oh, and. Soaz?'

'Sir?'

'Since Rose won't attend me, could Barbe do the honours?'

Barbe? In an instant, a tight band of tension made itself felt about Rose's head. She had been wearing her veil far too long this day.
Barbe?
Yet another of his women, she supposed. But what had she expected from the notorious Benedict Silvester?

'Of course, sir.'

'And we would like neighbouring stalls if possible, and could you attend to Rose personally? She has been riding and she would enjoy a massage after her bath. Use some of your jasmine oil, that special blend."

'As you wish.'

Thus it was that Rose found herself in the stall next to Ben's. There was room for a wooden bathtub and a bench strewn with so many cushions it resembled a couch. A couch. She chewed her lip. Where these massages must take place. She recalled that groan of pure pleasure when they had first entered the bathhouse. Did anything else, she wondered, take place on those benches? The presence of the girl Soaz would suggest not, but...

The curtain opened and closed behind Soaz, who dropped some white linens next to a silk cushion. The cushion was gold and edged with shiny red tassels that Countess Muriel would have coveted.

Soaz smiled.
'Madame
would like me to help her disrobe?'

'Oh. Yes, if you please." Rose said, though she felt awkward. She had never had help undressing in her life.

'Better let her." Ben's voice, with a distinct smile in its tone, came clearly through the cheesecloth curtain. Afraid he was watching her, Rose glanced suspiciously in his direction, but all she could see was the light from his bath stall filtering through the fabric. Two figures were silhouetted against it and it was no challenge to work out which was Ben as one of the figures was tall and had a distinct masculine shape, wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Barbe seemed to be very curvy with a generous bosom. Hmm.

The two silhouettes became one and Rose swallowed. 'Oh. yes? Is Barbe undressing you?" An unnecessary question, since from the silhouettes she could already see that Barbe had her hands at Ben's waist and must be unbuckling his belt, but somehow the words were out before she could stop them.

'Of course." His voice floated over the partition, relaxed and conversational. 'You may not know this, Rose, but it is customary in noble houses that when honoured guests bathe they are attended by the women of the house.'

'This is not a noble house!'

'No, but the same service is available. What can we poorer folk do but mimic our betters?"

'Oh.' There had been that teasing edge to his last comment, but Rose was frozen, fixated on the silhouettes in the next stall. Swallowing down bile, moved by an unpleasant emotion that she could not begin to name, she took a step towards him.

Soaz touched her arm just as she was about to tear aside the curtain.
"Madame? You
would attend him after all?"

Recalling herself, Rozenn shook her head and sank on to the cushion while Soaz unpinned her veil.

'We will wash your hair,
madame?'

'Please.' When Soaz had loosened her hair. Rozenn stood and lifted her arms and had her gown unlaced for her as though she were a great lady. She felt utterly miserable.

'Little flower?'

'Mmm?' She kept her back firmly to that silhouette. Barbe must be removing his tunic... No...maybe she would be unwinding his leg bindings... No,
no.
She would not think about which piece of his clothing Barbe was removing, she would
not.

'Best observe everything Soaz does,' Ben continued, 'if you truly wish to be the mistress of a knight's household. Sir Richard will expect you to be familiar with the customs."

Deftly, Soaz drew Rozenn's gown over her head, and helped her out of her undergown. Rose blushed, for Per was the only person to have seen her naked and she had found even that profoundly embarrassing. However, Soaz had an easy smile, a gentle smile, which made everything seem quite natural. Calmly, the girl reached for a water jug.

'Your hair first, I think,
madame.'

Nodding, Rozenn climbed into the bathtub. The water was warm and scented with jasmine. Ben remembered, he remembered how I love it. she caught herself thinking as she sank into the water and felt it lapping her breasts. She had to admit, the bath was heavenly for stiff limbs and aching muscles.

The drapery between her stall and Ben's billowed in a sudden draught. A door slammed, the lights on the other side flickered. She heard splashing--Ben climbing into his bathtub? She heard his groan of pleasure; she heard snatches of a conversation taking place in another part of the bathhouse.

She would not imagine Barbe pouring water over Ben's hair in the same delightful way that Soaz was doing for her. She would not imagine Barbe massaging Ben's shoulders in the same way that Soaz was massaging hers. In any case, it was perfectly innocent.

Wasn't it?

Closing her eyes. Rozenn leaned back and surrendered to the sensation of Soaz rinsing her hair. She willed herself not to think about whatever was happening in the next stall. It was nothing to do with her. And then, by stages, she discovered it was possible to relax, particularly when she succeeded in focusing solely on the clever hands of the young girl in the Hennebont bathhouse.

Rozenn went to bed early. She had enjoyed the roast chicken and glazed onions that Irene had offered, she had enjoyed them very much. She had also enjoyed hearing Ben treat Irene's guests to his version of the epic of Roland and would have liked to linger, but when her head almost fell into her trencher for the third time, she realised it was time to retire. The riding had worn her out.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs to compliment Irene on her cooking, she made her way to the bedchambers in the loft. Candles flickered in polished metal wallsconces, bouncing the light back at her. Ben's voice followed her up the stairs, comforting in its familiarity. She passed through the public bedchamber. Several bundles were laid out on the floor: a child's doll lay on one; a pair of shoes sat next to another--proof that other travellers had booked into the Bridge that night.

Rozenn closed the curtain that screened off the private chamber from the public area and opened her pack to pull out her nightshirt.

Ben's belongings were strewn over the boards. She stared, puzzled. It was not like Ben to be so untidy, but then he had probably been in a hurry. When they had returned from the bathhouse he had not had long to tune his lute ready for the performance. The instrument always took longer to tune when he was travelling; something about the motion of the horse, he had once told her, or perhaps changes in temperature or humidity.

Bearing in mind that Ben's singing was providing them with their board and lodging. Rose took a moment to reorder his things. The seam of one of his shirts was coming apart so she put it at her bedside to mend in the morning when the light was better. She folded his tunics and other shirts and stowed them in his pack; she rolled his spare leg bindings into a neat coil; she replaced his shortsword on the hook where she would swear he had hung it earlier...

A few minutes later, leaving a candle burning for him, she was sinking into the great bed, sighing with delight at the softness of the mattress and the cool fragrance of clean, lavender-scented linen.

She must have dozed, for she awakened to the thought that the night sounds in Hennebont were different from the night sounds in Quimperle. But then, she was no longer in the merchants' quarter of Hauteville. This was the first night that she could remember that she had not slept in Quimperle.

Her eyes snapped open. Something was being dragged across the floor in the public chamber. Just another traveller, she told herself. A child called out.
'Maman!'

A woman answered in low, soothing tones. There was another fretful murmur from the child and more motherly soothing. Rozenn tried willing herself back to sleep. It was just more travellers like herself, she repeated in her mind, but that little disturbance had upset her equilibrium. Earlier, she had been lulled into relaxation by the bath, and by Irene's roast chicken and the familiar cadence of Ben's voice. But none of those things could alter the fact that here she was, sleeping in a place that was alien to her.

Ivona was miles away; Mikaela was miles away; Adam was miles away.

Screwing her eyes shut. Rose tried to recapture that pleasant feeling of sleepiness. But though the sound of the leopard's-head lute continued to filter up through the floorboards, her sleepiness had vanished as surely as morning mist burned away by the sun.

In the public bedchamber on the other side of the curtain, a man gave a soft laugh. A woman--the mother who had been soothing the child?--whispered back. The man laughed again, the woman giggled and there followed a rustling of clothing, of crisp linen sheets.

A grunt. A sigh. Heated breathing. Rozenn put her hand to her cheeks. She did not have to be in the next room to know what was about to happen.

She heard a bump. An, 'Oh. love,
yes!'
A gentle but regular thudding. The woman moaned, as though she were enjoying it.

No? Surely not in the public bedchamber?

Thank God that Ben is nearby, she thought. Imagine if I were alone on Ketill's ship in the shelter set aside for passengers and other travellers started to do.. .to do..
.that
right next to her. Thank God for Ben. His presence in this inn makes this easier. He looks out for me. He
always
looks out for me, whenever he is with me. that is. Which is not often. She gnawed on her thumbnail. But when he
is
with me he always makes things easy for me; in fact, at times Ben takes great pains to please me--the costly jasmine in the bathouse...

Would Sir Richard do the same? She fiddled with the cross at her neck, but no answer sprang to mind. Sir Richard remained, for all they had talked together over meals at the inn, for all that he was one of her brother's greatest friends, a stranger. However, Rose did think that if she were to marry Sir Richard, he would be more reliable than Ben could ever be. Sir Richard would be able to spend more time with her, for a start. Certainly, knights had to give service to their overlords, but they also had manors to which they must return. A knight was bound to the land in ways that a minstrel never would be. Land represented security.

At that moment, the man on the other side of the curtain gave a shout of completion. The gentle, repetitive thudding stopped. The woman murmured and it was a loving sound, a sound that told Rozenn that the woman's husband had not hurt her. Which was very much to the good, for if every woman hated performing her marital duties the way Rozenn had hated it with Per...

Would she hate it with Sir Richard?

She started chewing on another nail. Sir Richard might expect her to enjoy it, but what if she was one of those women who could
never
enjoy it? There were such women--according to the girls doing their laundry by the river in Quimperle. There were women who could never get an ounce of enjoyment out of a man, frigid women. Perhaps she was one.

Quick footsteps were approaching. Ben? Rozenn heard the drone of conversation; the clunk of spoons and knives on wooden plates; the clattering of pans. But the singing had ceased.

The curtain parted and Ben stepped into the room, leopard's-head lute in hand.

Rose lay motionless, her eyes half-closed as though she were drowsing, but she could see him clearly in the candlelight, tall and dark and heartbreakingly handsome. Where would he sleep?

Putting his lute into its bag and sliding it carefully under the bed, Ben glanced towards her and unbuckled his belt. Thus had Rose watched her husband Per as he had readied himself for bed. But then there had been dread in her watching, and a determination to be thought fast asleep in the vain hope that Per would leave her alone and not press his attentions on her.

It was different today. Rozenn could lie here in this bed that Duke Hoel used, she could watch Ben bedding himself down, even though she did not know where he would choose to lie, and she felt calm. There was no dread. Ben, wherever he might sleep, would never hurt her.

She opened her eyes and sat up. The question that had been nagging away in the back of her mind ever since they had arrived at the inn tumbled off her lips. 'Ben, where will you sleep? On the floor or in this bed?"