Fires of Winter (40 page)

I drew a deep breath, now considering whether Melusine's head would not look better decorated with holes. I do not know what showed on my face, but she lowered her head and looked at me sidelong. I could see her swallow and then swallow again and I knew she was fighting an impulse to giggle. I was balanced on a sword edge between rage and laughter when the lady behind urged her horse forward and said, “What in the world is going on?” and then continued ahead without waiting for an answer.

That was fortunate because Melusine's face turned puce in her effort to restrain her laughter and I gave up and burst into guffaws, leaned from the saddle, and bussed my wife soundly on the cheek.

“God knows this was not how I intended to greet you,” I gasped. “I cannot tell you how much I have missed your company and how glad I am to have you back, but I did not mean my celebration to take the form of a public riot.”

Melusine started to laugh with me and then stopped and asked, “Will we be together? Queen Maud said this court will be as well attended as the one at Christmas, and Oxford is smaller than Westminster if one counts the lodgings in London, so there will be less accommodation.”

Her voice sounded eager to me, but she did not meet my eyes, and I thought her smile was strained when I told her of the chamber I had rented for us—it was later that she teased me about our hostess's weakness for my men. Then she reminded me that she could not come until her work for the queen was finished, and that would be late, she feared, because Maud and Stephen would be living in state—which meant that all the queen's richest gowns and every hanging, rug, and ornament would have to be unpacked and recorded separately. I pressed her hand and assured her that no matter how late, I would be waiting by the stairs that went to the women's quarters—or, if the king had some duty for me, which I did not expect because I was sure he would be with the queen, Merwyn would be waiting.

It was fortunate I had made that arrangement. After idling away hours after the evening meal, I was sent for into the king's private closet. Maud was, as I expected, with Stephen, but I was surprised to see that even the squires of the body had been dismissed. As soon as I came to the two chairs in which they sat side by side and bowed, Maud said to me, “Did you know Melusine was a favorite with King David?”

My heart sank at the words. I had hoped to hear no more of Melusine's feelings and connections with the Scots, and was disappointed. The particular question made my dismay worse. From it, I could only suppose that Melusine had ignored my instructions and approached King David with an appeal for the restoration of Ulle.

“I knew she had been presented to him,” I replied warily. “I cannot see how she could be a
favorite
. King David could not have known her well enough for that. I do not believe her father ever served David—her brother did, but she would not have been sent to court then, she was too young.”

“You are very hot in her defense,” Maud snapped.

There was a weary pettishness in the remark that made me feel much better. If Maud had a real complaint against Melusine, she would have stated it. This attack seemed to owe more to Maud's being tired and worried in general than to any real anger at me or at Melusine, and the king smiled at me behind Maud's back and made a little gesture of apology. Then I realized he must have told Maud—possibly as a small, cheerful item of amusing gossip to relate among many troublesome matters—about my desire to come ahead and reserve a chamber, and that must have reminded her that I was no longer indifferent to my wife and, to her mind at least, not capable of controlling her.

“I beg pardon, madam,” I protested, smiling, “that was not a defense but the facts as I know them. Will you tell me what Melusine has done wrong?”

“She told David she had been disseised.”

“She just walked up to King David and told him that?” I asked incredulously. “Right before your face? Or did she seek him out privately?”

Maud looked a little ashamed and Stephen began to laugh and patted her on the shoulder. “I think my dear wife is annoyed because for once I have seen deeper into a person than she.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then spoke to me again. “Melusine did not approach David at all. He approached her and asked her to dance. The rest followed from that. I
said
she was a sweet, gentle girl.”

“I am not so sure of that still,” Maud insisted. “Even Bruno admits she wants Ulle back. Now that she has established that David owes her a debt…Just you be sure, Bruno, that she does not ask Prince Henry for those lands. Treaty or no treaty, they are not his to give.”

“Why do we not give Ulle to Bruno?” Stephen suggested, laughing again, but I thought only half jesting. “The lands are worthless. Not a penny over the livelihood of the steward can be wrung out of them. Then you could stop worrying about it.”

“Not now!”

Maud spoke so sharply that the smile I had given the king, part gratitude and part acknowledgment that he was only teasing his wife, froze on my face as I turned to look at her.

She laughed then and said lightly, “Melusine is too useful to me now. I cannot spare her—and you cannot spare Bruno, my lord.”

I could have promised that Melusine and I would serve as willingly after we had Ulle as before, but I knew Maud would not believe that, and I was not sure I believed it myself. Instead, I bowed and said, equally lightly, “I am not yet very hungry. The promise of the carrot on the stick will serve very well.”

“A hope you may have, not a promise,” Maud replied before Stephen could speak. Then she looked down at her hand enclosed in her husband's and added softly, “I will not promise what may be impossible to perform.” She turned her hand in Stephen's and gave his a squeeze. “It is late, my lord, and I am weary.”

The king put his arm around her shoulders and nodded dismissal at me as he murmured some apology to her for not taking her to her chamber earlier. I was out the door before they rose, but had only to look across the nearly empty hall to see that Merwyn was gone from the foot of the stairs. That meant that Melusine must have come down from the queen's apartments and gone ahead with Merwyn to our lodgings. I hurried down the stair in the forebuilding, but they were not in the courtyard or the outer bailey, so I moderated my pace, guessing that Melusine must have come down only a minute or two after I was summoned and I would not be able to catch up.

When I came softly into the solar, I caught Melusine in the act of undressing, wearing only her shift. The way she cried out and clutched to her the tunic she had just removed enchanted me completely. “I adore you,” I muttered, striding across the narrow room and embracing her. Her arms were caught between us, and for an instant I thought she was pushing me away, but then she dropped the tunic to the floor and laid her head on my shoulder.

“Beloved, I am sorry my letters were so indifferent, but the queen—”

“I understood,” she murmured huskily.

I hesitated, but she did not say in turn that she had written like a gossiping friend for the same reason. It occurred to me just then that Melusine had never said she cared for me. I was tempted to press her for a few sweet words, which I had never had from any woman except my sister Audris—for I was not so foolish as to ask a whore to call me beloved—but I did not. If she refused, even out of shyness, the sweetness of this moment would be lost, and the moment
was
sweet, for her arms had crept around me, one stroking my back and the other clinging to my waist. I tilted her face up and kissed the full red lips; her eyes closed.

“Are you cold, dear heart?” I asked softly after a moment. “Do you want to get into bed?” I should not have kissed her, for I was aching with need already and the feel of her mouth made it worse.

“No, I will help you undress,” she whispered.

I was glad of it. She could have called Edna to help me, but her willingness to serve me herself was precious to me. My grip on her had relaxed while we spoke, and she let herself slide down my body. The way she went down, her arms still around me, her whole body pressed against mine, nearly brought me to a premature spilling of my seed. Yet, I was not sure she had intended to raise desire in me. If she wished to hide her face or her body, she might have done the same thing. A small uneasiness drifted about inside of me and shadowed Melusine's actions. Ever since she had yielded her body to me there seemed to be two Melusines, one warm and eager and the other reluctant and doubting—but at that moment it would have taken a far stronger chill to divert me than the moth-wing brush of doubt I felt. Sword and belt, tunic and shirt, were off and cast away anywhere before Melusine had both my cross garters untied. As the second loosened, I had the tie of my chausses undone and could rid myself in one sweeping push of all my nether garments.

Then I bent to lift Melusine from the floor, to strip off her tunic, to sup the sweetness of her body with my mouth and take in the strong woman-smell of her. And when my mouth was not busy with kissing I praised her. I do not remember everything I said—all of it was silly beyond measure, like calling her my sun and my moon—but it was true. I was spilling out all the need to love that had been buried in me all the years I had been parted from Audris. But this was a far fiercer caring, far stronger, a need so great that though it was all joy it was like torture. Caring for Audris was a glow of warmth and a sweet tenderness. The tenderness was there for Melusine also, but it was like a honey that bound together a burning ginger concoction of passion in the body and the soul.

Later, after we had loved—and that was better than ever with Melusine's strong legs urging me deeper and her body rising to meet mine; there was no reluctance there nor did I fail to bring her, crying out, high and sweet, like a bird's song, to a rich joy—but later, when the soft words and small tired kisses of repletion had been exchanged and she lay quiet against me, I thought she looked sad. And I wondered then whether there had been just a moment of resistance when I first lifted her up to caress her before we joined bodies. If there had been, I know it melted with my first touches and sweet words.

Again it was a moth-wing brush of doubt and I flicked it away as one brushes at a moth. But it was there, and perhaps to avoid the far greater pain of doubting Melusine's affection for me, I turned to a faint renewed irritation about her leaning toward King David and mentioned the queen's remark that she was a favorite with him. She pushed herself up on the pillows, away from me, and frowned, but I saw at once that she was more anxious than angry.

“I do not think I could have avoided the meeting,” she said. “Maud would have been even more suspicious if I refused to come to the hall to eat with the others. And I did not believe he would recognize me after—it must be four or five years.” She hesitated and then went on slowly, “Maud is a very strange woman. I could have sworn that she had thought the matter through and accepted what I told her—which was the truth—as the truth. She was so easy with me on the journey here, even sometimes jesting with me, I thought I had eased her mind…yet she has carried that suspicion—”

“I am not sure of that,” I interrupted. I certainly did not want Melusine to feel the queen had been deceiving her. “I do not think the queen is really suspicious of your talk with King David in Durham. I think Maud was angry and frightened about something else and to divert her, the king told her how I had asked to come to Oxford before him to secure a place so we could be together—Stephen thought it very funny and teased me for days about how I resisted our marriage and how much I have changed. Then because of her fear, Maud recalled that she had urged our marriage because she thought me impervious to women and found I was not. She was only lashing out at you and me because she is afraid. And I am almost sure now that we will have Ulle in the end, although…No, let me finish one thing at a time. The king said, ‘Let us give it to Bruno'—only half in jest—and Maud did not say ‘No,' she said, ‘Not now.'”

“Not now?” Melusine echoed, and then, quick of wit as she was, also repeated, “The queen is afraid?” And putting the two together asked, “What has happened?”

“Nothing as yet,” I told her, “but the king fears treachery from the bishop of Salisbury, and I believe the bishop and his nephews will be asked to give up their offices and the keeps they hold.”

“So that was why Maud once said she did not dare anger Salisbury over the dishonesty of one of his cousins and why Leicester rather than Salisbury came to Durham with us.” Melusine nodded briskly as if things that had puzzled her had now become clear. Then she frowned again. “But why should the queen be afraid? If Salisbury plans some treachery, is it not best that he be stopped before he can accomplish it?”

I explained then about the power of the bishop and his party, how they might resist and cry that they were unjustly used, since it was true enough that there was no proof of disloyalty against them, and how that might reawaken the rebellion and even make it more dangerous by bringing Gloucester and Empress Matilda to England.

Melusine listened although I could see her eyes were closing. When I was done, she slid down beside me again, with a shrug of her shoulders. “A cause to deprive them of offices and keeps will be found.”

“But I think they are too experienced and too clever for the king to catch them out in any real crime,” I said, pulling her close and laughing silently at myself because I was so happy now and only two weeks ago the same thought could make a bright summer day turn grey.

“I did not say any crime would be discovered,” Melusine murmured sleepily. “Do not be silly. I said a cause would be found—or mayhap made. Hmmm. Could be that was why the queen is afraid, because she does not think the cause the king will create is sufficient. She is very clever, very…”